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News, tools, and tips for techie real estate agentsFri, 21 Sep 2012 16:10:07 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.11techforagents/feedhttps://feedburner.google.comFetchnotes for Real Estatehttp://www.techforagents.com/1805-fetchnotes-for-real-estate/
http://www.techforagents.com/1805-fetchnotes-for-real-estate/#commentsThu, 20 Sep 2012 17:05:36 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1805Since most Americans are skittish about buying a new home following the collapse of the housing bubble, real estate agents are showing more properties and answering an increased number of […]

]]>Since most Americans are skittish about buying a new home following the collapse of the housing bubble, real estate agents are showing more properties and answering an increased number of questions. Under these conditions, agents are responsible for recalling loads of information for multiple listings while they are away from their computers. This makes selling a house closer to playing the old Windows Minesweeper game than actually helping a family fulfill the American dream. We tip our hat to you guys and have an easy way to help you handle this barrage of information.

By keeping a list of all potential listings in Fetchnotes and then hashtagging the details of each property, a real estate agent can search for a client’s specific needs while they are in the office or in the field. Let’s illustrate this idea a little better by providing an example.

Cindy the realtor is helping a newlywed couple find a home in San Francisco. After viewing a few listings, the newlyweds start to obtain a better understanding of what they are in the market for. They need a 3 bedroom apartment, but would like to save some money by looking at foreclosures. Luckily, Cindy personally stores her #Listings in Fetchnotes.

By using Fetchnotes’s multiple hashtag filtering to search for a #3Bed #Foreclosure, Cindy can quickly identify the two properties that would best meet the newlywed’s needs.

However, actually organizing the information isn’t the hard part. Brokers discover flaws in a property over time. Therefore, each listing is always changing and these changes need to be communicated to all the agents in a firm. With Fetchnotes’s unique ability to share notes, information is always up to date, email clutter and phone calls are nearly eliminated and the broker never looks like a used car salesman for overlooking the rusted gutter in the backyard.

Storing listings is one way realtors have used Fetchnotes, but it’s more commonly used for all the tasks associated with completing a sale. Once the newlyweds set their hopes on a home, closing the deal requires the drafting of papers and contacting the seller. Cindy can add an a #Email to any #Listing so that she remembers to email the sellers of the property later in the day. Also, with Fetchnotes’s new integration with Filepicker, agents can attach floor plans or pictures that they want and share them with anybody. Forget navigating the constraints of your internal systems.

While Fetchnotes is awesome for staying on top of your workload, the app is designed to help Cindy finish early so that she can move on to her hobbies and family. Cindy can categorize book recommendations with #read or remind her son to take out the trash by adding to his #chores. Sorry kid, but you can’t hide anymore.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1805-fetchnotes-for-real-estate/feed/1How to “Hack” Prospecting with Rapportivehttp://www.techforagents.com/1780-how-to-hack-prospecting-with-rapportive/
http://www.techforagents.com/1780-how-to-hack-prospecting-with-rapportive/#commentsTue, 10 Jul 2012 19:39:11 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1780Let’s pretend for a moment that you are a luxury real estate agent based in Connecticut. One morning, you read that Kayak, a travel-search engine, has just filed for its […]

]]>Let’s pretend for a moment that you are a luxury real estate agent based in Connecticut. One morning, you read that Kayak, a travel-search engine, has just filed for its IPO, and at the top-end of the range, the company could be worth just shy of $1 Billion. After shaking your head in disbelief and muttering that you missed your calling as a tech entrepreneur, you pause and realize that Kayak’s headquarters are in Norwalk, CT. Your eyes light up at the thought of engaging with these local, newly minted multi-millionaires who will likely be upgrading their lifestyles in short form.

You have a target, a Kayak exec that you want to pitch, but you lack their contact information. As a tech-savvy agent, you hop onto LinkedIn hoping that you share a common connection. Unsurprisingly, you are outside the exec’s network and have exhausted your Inmails. You could try to reach your prospect by calling Kayak and politely asking to be transferred to the exec’s direct line…good-luck with that! Or you could reach your prospect faster and smarter using Rapportive.

What the heck is Rapportive, you ask? Rapportive is a free plug-in for Gmail that works with the Chrome, Safari, and Firefox browsers. Once installed, Rapportive will display your contact’s job title, location, links to their social media profiles as well as recent posts/tweets. Almost always, this includes links to the three kings of social media: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Rapportive works its magic whenever you open an email or enter a recipients email address while composing a new message. It appears on the right-hand side of the screen and does not interfere with reading or composing messages.

Ok, so how does this help you contact your prospect? Rapportive touts its ability to learn more about your current connections but does not mention that you can “discover” email addresses of non-contacts, and this is where things get interesting. With a small dose of knowledge about email addresses and an equally small bit of guessing we can “hack prospecting”. Let’s continue with our target prospect.

First, click “compose” as if you were starting a new email. Next in the “To”(email address) line, take an educated guess at what you think is your prospect’s email address. I say educated, because there are common email address iterations including, (but not limited to):

If the email address is invalid, Rapportive will return a “?” and no details about that person. Worry not, once you guess the correct address, Rapportive will display that individual’s profile, Bingo.

Not only do you now know your prospect’s direct email address, but also you have contextual cues from their social media presence to aid in your pitch. You can navigate to their various social network profiles to get a pulse of what that person is about and ultimately to build better rapport, hence the name Rapportive. When someone receives a tailored message direct to their personal email account, they are much more receptive and likely to respond. Even better in this example, is the fact that you are dealing with tech entrepreneurs; they live in their inbox.

While this was a hyper-specific use case (you’re very welcome, Connecticut luxury real estate agents), there are many professional situations where Rapportive can work toward your benefit including building stronger relationships with current contacts. In my own experience, I have benefitted from Rapportive by broadening my professional network after contacting then subsequently meeting in-person Co-founders of early-stage tech startups. My messaging was concise and demonstrated my passion for their company.

Rapportive is a powerful tool and with great power comes great responsibility. If you intend to use Rapportive, be sure to use it judiciously. This means do not use the shotgun approach and email entire teams. After all, they do work together and will talk to one another, so your name will get around fast. This also means to be highly targeted in your messaging when reaching out.

Finally, be aware that others can see your Rapportive profile as well as links to your social network presence. Consider editing your Rapportive profile, which can easily be done once you have installed the tool.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1780-how-to-hack-prospecting-with-rapportive/feed/4Google or Facebook … the Debate Heats Uphttp://www.techforagents.com/1762-google-or-facebook-the-debate-heats-up/
http://www.techforagents.com/1762-google-or-facebook-the-debate-heats-up/#commentsFri, 22 Jun 2012 16:01:05 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1762The mere viewing audience of Facebook is so dominant over Google + that it’s hard to find a reason to decide between Google or Facebook. If you are a real […]

]]>The mere viewing audience of Facebook is so dominant over Google + that it’s hard to find a reason to decide between Google or Facebook. If you are a real estate agent that is going to supplement the consumer traffic you already have from Facebook, Google plus is a good secondary means to increase your reach.

While Google + is less consumer driven, Realtors who choose one platform over the other may be shooting themselves in the foot. There is room for both these media giants in the realm of advertising. Staying active in both companies seems to be the way to go until a cohesive connection between the two is established.

Facebook, with its word of mouth infectious appeal and ease of access, makes it quite a dominant force in advertising and social media. Its users outnumber Google plus nearly 20:1 (800 million to Google’s 40 million). That’s a really significant number, but Google is currently growing at a 3 to 1 pace to Facebook, so if future interaction is your concern, Google is worth the effort.

While the traffic time per user seems to be totally dominated by Facebook, the more features Google Plus adds, the more traffic it may take from Facebook. Additionally, Google tends to be referred to and thought of as more “professional” and could possibly dominate the professional advertising dollar in the near term.

If the projected growth rates for Google Plus are correct, Facebook would be unwise to dismiss them as an adversary in the social media space. – Lou Lynch

Other than the use of Google Maps in real estate listings (which is pretty useful by the way), Google doesn’t really have any substantial real estate specific applications or search engines associated with their media services. Facebook doesn’t associate with any MLSs either, but you are far more likely to locate an agent or real estate service, company, or listing through Facebook currently than you would be with any Google service including Google Plus.

Beyond the direct benefit of simply reaching networks of people, content distribution through multiple social platforms creates a more varied portfolio of social signals being directed towards your site. This type of diversity looks natural and more socially popular; creating authority for your site. While your best bang for your buck may still be with Facebook, there is no harm in hedging your bet a little by utilizing both media outlets and at least you’re getting your name out there.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1762-google-or-facebook-the-debate-heats-up/feed/4Google Drive is Alive, GMail Storage Upped to 10GBhttp://www.techforagents.com/1752-google-drive-gmail/
http://www.techforagents.com/1752-google-drive-gmail/#respondTue, 24 Apr 2012 17:33:26 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1752Today, Google has announced the launch of their wildly-rumored Google Drive; an online storage similar to that of Dropbox. You can store up to 5GB of scanned real estate contracts, […]

]]>Today, Google has announced the launch of their wildly-rumored Google Drive; an online storage similar to that of Dropbox. You can store up to 5GB of scanned real estate contracts, listing photos, flyers, and other marketing for absolutely nothing. Need more space? They have paid plans for that too.

You can choose to upgrade to 25GB for $2.49/month, 100GB for $4.99/month or even 1TB for $49.99/month. When you upgrade to a paid account, your Gmail account storage will also expand to 25GB.

Google is launching it today with native platforms on the Android operating system through Google Play. On the desktop, there are also installers for both PC and Mac; IOS apps for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod are in the works. Google Drive also has a built in collaboration tool, where you and anyone you allow access can continually update a document and the latest version is continually updated.

Also just released is that GMail is increasing their complimentary email storage to 10GB. I don’t know about you, but the space I already had was more than enough. 10GB is definitely icing on the cake. It looks like Google is out to make this a Google holiday with all the good news, which is all more than welcome.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1752-google-drive-gmail/feed/0IDX for Real Estate: IDX Vendors, Features and Futurehttp://www.techforagents.com/1598-idx-real-estate/
http://www.techforagents.com/1598-idx-real-estate/#commentsFri, 23 Mar 2012 17:28:50 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1598Jump to a Section The History of IDX Essential Features of an IDX Vendor Product Choosing a Real Estate IDX Vendor The Future of IDX Conclusion You’ve probably heard the […]

You’ve probably heard the term “IDX”. If your market is similar to mine, it’s a fairly common term used among real estate agents and brokers. Those who use it are eager to implement it’s lead capture features yielding vast opportunities for those willing to take a step into online lead generation.

Choosing your IDX vendor can be a daunting task, however. What features do we need? Do I want customization or not? Are all IDX vendors this expensive? In this article, I’ll go over the history of IDX, suggest features you’ll need, and then offer suggestions on various vendors throughout the country that I’ve personally used or know someone who has. I’ll finally go into detail on my predictions for the future of real estate IDX.

The Houston Association of Realtors was one of the first real estate associations to adopt a reciprocal policy like this; in anticipation that local brokers would eventually be exchanging data anyway. Their preemptive steps led them to adopt policies with regulations to deter “data pirates”, or brokers who were exchanging data without display regulations.

Later, this idea was known as “broker reciprocity”, then “Internet Data Display (IDD)”. It finally settled with “Internet Data Exchange (IDX)”. IDX is the acronym we use to describe this national policy today.

NAR predicted these new policies to be in great benefit to local real estate brokers, and in hindsight, they were dead on. The main aspect of IDX was to allow brokers the ability to nurture a new prospect that resulted from viewing properties on their real estate site. Prior to this, that contact may have gone to Realtor.com to view additional listings and then possibly contacted another real estate broker.

By having all available listings for sale on one site, a web visitor was more likely to contact the site owner for real estate assistance.

Today, an IDX powered real estate site has become a significant source of new business for many progressive real estate brokers. Either through investing in paid campaigns or through organic search engine rankings, the goal is to drive as many consumers to their website as possible. Their site is usually then equipped with forced registration that captures the contact information of the visitor and offers the opportunity for the broker to convert this to new business.

Simply put; an IDX powered real estate website in today’s real estate market is an absolute necessity. Real estate agents around the country are empowering their lead generation strategies by adding this new source of prospecting, and reaping the numerous rewards through effective and consistent follow up.

The public doesn’t often know that every site out there is not accurate. For the consumer, an IDX powered site provides in-depth detail about homes from a reliable source. Personally, I find it a great tool for niche marketing. – Indianapolis Homes for Sale

A quality IDX solution will have a few key ingredients when offering search tools and showcasing listings. The two most important features you’ll need are:

Search engine friendly design and indexable/spider-able

Lead capture tools (forced or open registration)

Search Engine Friendly, Indexable, and Spiders. Oh My!

A search engine friendly IDX solution will give you full control over modifying page titles, meta description, and header and page content for all real estate pages you’ll serve to visitors. It is also a solution that allows the major search engines (Hi, Google) to “spider” or “crawl” your site and index each page.

Once a particular listing or page on your site has been indexed, it may be served to visitors from search engines searching for targeted keywords you can optimize and market for. Search engine marketing is out of the scope of this article, but spending time reading through the free material at SEOMoz would prove useful to anyone in the online lead generation business.

With the increase usage of smart devices, we see more and more customers entering complete addresses for properties they’ve passed by or noticed from various sources. Having an indexable idx provides more opportunities for these customers to find my website and utilize my services. – Panama City Beach Condos

Lead Capture Tools – Making Visitors Register

There may be a case for open-registration in the near future, but in today’s real estate market, you will get the best results by forcing registration. This lead capture strategy will allow you to have visitors register to view listings on your IDX website, and even to see search results (if you choose to be more aggressive).

When should you make a user register? There are quite a few strategies available, and you’ll get the best results by trying it in your market and comparing the results. In order from least to most aggressive, the most popular methods for capturing the contact information of your visitors are:

Allow visitors to view x number of listings, then force registration

Force registration immediately upon landing on a listing detail page

Force registration on property search results

Registration required to search for properties

Once their information has been captured, the method you employ with following up varies from broker to broker. The most successful brokers, however, utilize a frequent and consistent email and phone campaign.

The best thing about owning an IDX powered real estate site is a constant flow of leads to convert into prospects and ultimately clients, along with the ability to systematically follow up with these people whether they are looking to buy today or 5 years from now. – Gulf Shores Beach Condos

Each real estate association has policies in place to regulate the IDX data passed between brokers. These regulations set rules for displaying the listing information on various sites, many times requiring listing broker attribution or displaying a verbatim disclaimer.

Your IDX vendor will enter a binding agreement with your local association to display the listing information accordingly, which is why you may hear about a particular IDX vendor being “approved” with your MLS. This simply means that your vendor has agreed and prepared their software to comply with your local association’s rules and regulations for displaying IDX data. The next step is for you to choose an approved vendor, pay any applicable fees, and then allow your vendor to build your IDX powered real estate site.

Being that each association has various approved vendors, I’ll detail the most popular ones below. You’ll want to contact your association to get a complete list of all that are available to you when choosing your IDX vendor.

List of Vendors

The IDX vendors below are a few of the mostly widely approved by associations around the country. In no particular order:

Real Estate Webmasters (REW)

In 2004, Morgan Carey created Real Estate Webmasters with the intention of building an IDX product that was search engine friendly. He succeeded. The REW platform is built from the ground up to be a great content management solution that provides all the necessary ingredients to create effective landing pages, display appropriate meta information (search: SEO meta descriptions), and gorgeous listing detail pages.

Their high end product, the limited edition custom (LEC), is a one-per-market offer and features a gorgeous design that’s updated annually (upgrade not free). Purchasers of their LECs pay quite a sum of money (into the $10s of thousands) to build their LECs, but many are rewarded with top notch real estate sites that convert.

Examples
The following are a few examples of some of the many REW sites.

Wilmington NC Real Estate: BuddyBlake.com

McKinney Real Estate: McKinneyHomeRebate.com

Metro Detroit Real Estate: MarkZProperties.com

Displet

Displet (pronounced “dis-play”) began as a proprietary RETS/IDX system for Eric Bramlett, a real estate broker & part time techy, and Braxton Beyer, a full time developer and part time real estate agent. After they deployed the system on their own sites, local Austin agents took notice and approached them to lease the application for their own websites. From there, Displet was born.

Displet gives the site owner control of 80% of its html, 100% of its CSS, and allows approved Javascript. Displet’s API allows third party developers to expand on it’s system. The team at Displet are focused on conversion and continue to release features that increase an agent’s bottom line, such as the Property Suggestion Tool, a powerful email drip that keeps clients coming back.

Examples
Check out some of these sites powered by Displet IDX technology:

Recently acquired by Zillow, Diverse Solutions experienced much of their success with their dsIDXPress product because of it’s implementation with the popular, free blogging platform: WordPress. The basic startup fees are quite affordable as well, and is probably one of the easiest IDX solutions to implement.

Out of the box, the basic dsIDXPress product from Diverse Solutions does not provide any lead capture tools (their premium product does, though it’s considerably more expensive). IDX+ is a third-party plugin released by Zachary Katz of Katz Web Design. This commercial WordPress plugin offers user registration and lead capture, backend lead management features, and front-end saved search and saved listing interfaces for registered users for a one time license fee.

Examples
The following examples are IDX real estate sites powered by Diverse Solutions.

Houston Real Estate: LiveHoustonTexas.com

Rancho Santa Margarita Real Estate: DanielleCordova.com

Manhatten Real Estate: MattPernice.com

IDX Broker

IDX Broker was founded in 2003 by two long time residents and entrepreneurs from Eugene, Oregon. Even to this day, the two original founders are still involved in the day to day operations at the IDX Broker main headquarters.

IDX Broker provides one of the most flexible and customizable IDX interfaces on the market. They currently service over 500 markets as of today, and pride themselves on having low employee turnover which leads to better customer service and high quality product design. They’re planning on releasing a new version of IDX Broker in the second quarter of 2012 that will offer more customization and an updated user interface, named the IDX Broker Platinum.

Wolfnet is one of the oldest IDX vendors, dating all the way back since 2000. The moment IDX was announced by NAR, they built a product to meet then ensuing demand. Currently based out of Minneapolis, MN, their IDX product is approved through over 300 MLSs around the country and includes lead management and mapping solutions (premium product).

One major critique of the Wolfnet solution is that it is not a native implementation. In other words, search engines may not index every listing for sale in your market, which has proven to be a great way to attract additional visitors to a real estate site. The Wolfnet product is a framed solution that can be “plugged in” to any existing real estate site.

Although the framed solution isn’t the best for generating organic search engine traffic, for many real estate agents it’s the easiest option to implement without hiring an outside web developer. These agents can then simply drive traffic to their sites using the more costly method of PPC, or pay-per-click.

Examples
The images below detail the various features of the Wolfnet IDX solution. Each can be implemented on any real estate site using a simple iFrame.

In the future, as more agents and brokers adopt IDX solutions, the need for an open registration system will emerge. Consumers will eventually demand free access to all listing information, forcing IDX site owners to look for new and creative ways to capture contact information.

Mobile Internet browsing for projected to overtake desktop browsing in the next 18-24 months. Design that responds to being resized and therefore suitable for many different types of browsers (mobile specifically) will become a prominent request to real estate web developers; commonly referred to as “Responsive Web Design”.

The demand for indexable, customizable IDX solutions will grow as the economy steadily grows out of it’s recent recession. More real estate agents begin to return to their businesses, while looking for a new online presence to showcase their services. New competition in the marketplace among IDX vendors will lead to lower pricing, setup costs, and implementation. Local real estate associations will continue to expand their approved IDX vendor lists, offering more solutions for real estate broker members.

In addition to expanding the IDX vendor options for real estate brokers, local associations will begin to adopt a solution for individual real estate agents to have access to the same data feed as real estate brokers. This will cause an even greater increase in IDX powered real estate sites on the web, offering a plethora of websites for consumers to peruse real estate listings. Real estate website search engine optimization will become increasingly more important and valuable to agents and brokers looking to attract the most amount of traffic from popular search engines.

Real estate brokers around the country are arming themselves with the latest Internet lead generation tools to spur up new business. An IDX-powered website is the essential foundation to a profitable online lead generation strategy. Investing in a quality IDX is never a regretful decision for anyone who is considering a career in real estate, or even for veteran agents or brokers looking to expand their lead generation portfolio.

In the meantime, survey your local market to analyze your competition and see if adding the Internet as a source of new business is worthwhile (it probably is). Many real estate agents and brokers are experiencing great success with their IDX powered sites; are you going to ride the wave or arrive late to the party?

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1598-idx-real-estate/feed/7Reoccuring Tasks for Highrise by 37 Signalshttp://www.techforagents.com/1611-37-signals-highrise/
http://www.techforagents.com/1611-37-signals-highrise/#commentsTue, 20 Mar 2012 18:33:13 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1611I’m a huge fan of 37 signals and their suite of products. None of them are geared specifically for real estate agents, but the products works so well (and are […]

]]>I’m a huge fan of 37 signals and their suite of products. None of them are geared specifically for real estate agents, but the products works so well (and are gorgeous to boot) that I find myself looking for ways to use them for real estate.

One tool, Highrise, is their CRM for managing contacts, “cases”, “deals”, notes, tasks, etc. One feature has kept me from using it as my single, CRM solution for real estate. It does not have the ability to define a preset list of tasks or task templates.

Not anymore.

WeLoveHighrise

I stumbled on this site, WeLoveHighrise, while doing some SEO work for my Houston real estate site, and was excited to see that they had a way to use the Highrise API to create task templates.

It’s pretty simple, you create a template of tasks using their control panel. Then, when you’re ready to apply a task template to a contact, you login (just stay logged in), search for the contact, and apply the plan.

You can sign up for a free 30 day trial using your subdomain name with Highrise, and your API token (found in the settings area). There is an option to sign in using your Highrise username and password, but I suggest using your API token in case anything funky happens and you need to cancel. You can easily reset your API token in Highrise for security purposes.

Other Features and Pricing

You can also do a few additional things like place all your contacts on a map, find duplicates, and even apply task templates to “cases”. I don’t find these features nearly as useful as the contact task templates, however. That would be the single most awesome reason to use their service.

Unfortunately, the service isn’t free. For $5 a month, you can have one user sign in to add templates to tasks and cases. This is all you really should need, but just in case, they offer more expensive monthly options for 2 and 3+ users up to $13 per month.

WeLoveHighrise Pricing

Check it out at WeLoveHighrise.com or their blog. If you experience any bugs, be sure and comment so I can let the developers know.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1611-37-signals-highrise/feed/8Remove Nofollow from Vanilla Forums Signature Pluginhttp://www.techforagents.com/1580-remove-nofollow-from-vanilla-forums-signature-plugin/
http://www.techforagents.com/1580-remove-nofollow-from-vanilla-forums-signature-plugin/#respondMon, 05 Mar 2012 16:17:29 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1580If you’ve considered adding a forum to your site, you might have stumbled upon the free, developer-friendly solution by Vanilla. Their forums are what power our real estate forums, which […]

]]>If you’ve considered adding a forum to your site, you might have stumbled upon the free, developer-friendly solution by Vanilla. Their forums are what power our real estate forums, which is a invite-only message board for real estate professionals.

One of the headaches is the nofollow that is attributed to the signatures in Tim’s Signature Plugin (links at bottom of this post). There wasn’t a way to remove the nofollow from all signature links until now.

Why would I want to remove them? Our forums are invite-only, and the real estate professionals there are ones that I’ve met physically or online and trust. Their websites are some of the best in the industry, and passing link juice isn’t nearly as risky.

Your situation may be different. You might allow anyone to register and post in your forums, and in this case, I’d advise leaving the nofollow on. If you don’t personally moderate user signatures (or have someone you trust that does), it’s only a matter of time before you get spammed.

How to remove rel=”nofollow”

Now that I’ve gotten the warnings out of the way, here’s how to get the nofollow off Vanilla Forum signature links using Tim’s Signature Plugin (Version 1.1.5).

Be sure to chime in with a comment at the bottom of this post if this works for you!

Open public_html/forums/plugins/Signatures/class.signatures.plugin.php

Around line 241, replace the _DrawSignature function with the new one below.

Resource Links

http://www.techforagents.com/1580-remove-nofollow-from-vanilla-forums-signature-plugin/feed/0Building Better Client Relationshipshttp://www.techforagents.com/1570-building-better-client-relationships/
http://www.techforagents.com/1570-building-better-client-relationships/#respondTue, 14 Feb 2012 04:58:53 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1570I’m sick and tired of dealing with someone in sales with poor customer service skills. Don’t they know that the two go hand-in-hand? It’s such a short-sighted attempt to score […]

I’m sick and tired of dealing with someone in sales with poor customer service skills. Don’t they know that the two go hand-in-hand? It’s such a short-sighted attempt to score a customer, when they could be molding a relationship that pays huge dividends.

Mindset

The first thing that needs to go is your mindset. You’re not in this to make a quick buck; are you? Change careers if you are; seriously. You’re only doing everyone else a favor. Find something you love to do and quit wasting everyone’s time with piss-poor buying experiences and lack luster attention to detail. I beg you.

Your goal should be to create a raving fan for your business; whatever that may be. Don’t even attempt to guess the size of the social network your next client is privy to. You’re probably wrong. Assume that you’re dealing with the biggest badass in their industry, and that they know everyone from the schlep on the side of the road asking for change this morning to Donald Trump.

Why? Simple. A raving fan will easily turn your puny income stream into multiples. Don’t think 3 months, 6 months, or even 5 years. You’re business is going to live beyond you, right? Think forever.

Decide in advance that you are going to craft an buying experience that they remember forever. They’ll mention how awesome you were at getting things done. They’ll brag to their softball buddy about how they were able to move without the stress, while John up to bat next nearly suffered a heart attack.

Customer service is going down the drain, and it pisses me off. Make a decision to stop the downward trend of boring client relationships and create advocates for life.

Communication

Damnit – answer your phone! Move your little fingers to that keyboard of yours and type out a quick reply, or stop for a moment and text something. It doesn’t matter if you have the answer or not. Simply acknowledging a question, versus ignoring them until you feel pretty enough to indulge the time, can boost you beyond a forgettable salesman to the one breaking all the sales records. Your clients will love you for it, and your conversion ratios will show it.

These days, there are simply no excuses to not staying in frequent communication with everyone that’s a party to a business transaction. No excuses. Everyone should know what the hell you’re doing, how awesome you are at it, and why they can remain worry-free about the results you’re planning to deliver. People have plenty to worry about; that last thing they need some schmuck ruining their day.

Follow-Up

Deal is done? Check. Money in the bank? Check. Following up forever? Wait – what? That’s right – you’re leaving money on the table if you think your job is done. It’s just begun. It’s your job to keep that past client of yours knowing that you’re still doing what you’re doing, that you’re still a badass, and that the relationship you built wasn’t just to cash a check. It wasn’t, right? Better check your mindset, Padawan.

Schedule reminders to call, email, drop by – it doesn’t matter. As long as you’re keeping in touch and letting them know that you’re still alive, you’re ensuring that you’re staying on the forefront of their mind the moment they meet someone looking for the services you can provide. The next time Sally down the hall mentions buying a home in Houston, your mugshot should instantly appear in their head.

That, my friends, is where it all begins again. Don’t screw it up this time.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1570-building-better-client-relationships/feed/0Efficient Internet Lead Management With Your Mobile Deviceshttp://www.techforagents.com/1541-efficient-internet-lead-management-with-your-mobile-devices/
http://www.techforagents.com/1541-efficient-internet-lead-management-with-your-mobile-devices/#commentsTue, 03 Jan 2012 21:08:07 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1541Showings, contracts, leases, networking, closings, more paper work…you get the idea. How are you supposed to find the time to prospect or work those internet leads you’ve been receiving? Don’t […]

]]>Showings, contracts, leases, networking, closings, more paper work…you get the idea. How are you supposed to find the time to prospect or work those internet leads you’ve been receiving?

Don’t let your marketing dollars go to waste. You CAN effectively and efficiently manage your internet leads. And yes; you can still get everything else in your day completed. It’s all about time management and the tools you have to help you.

Below you’ll find tips to creatively create time in your day with the use of different mobile devices.

Finding the Time to Call Real Estate Leads

In his article titled “5 Productive Things To Do During a Slow Open House,” Steve talks about things you can do if no one shows up at an open house. You can also use this time to work your internet leads. These same tips can be applied in numerous situations like showings, inspections, etc.

More importantly, it is necessary to make an appointment with yourself each and everyday to set aside times to make calls to leads. Smartphones make it easier to keep track of tasks, reminders, and daily schedules.

Recommended Tools

Smartphone (iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Windows)

Bluetooth Earpiece

Laptop & Mobile Hotspot

Tablet With Cellular Data Service

Should I Contact All Leads Through My Cell Phone?

In our offices, we teach agents how to be efficient and multitask among many other things. One of the recommendations we make to the agents is to always call leads from your cell phone. You want the person you are calling to have your cell phone number; especially an internet lead.

Your cell phone is always going to be with you. If a lead happens to return your call, you won’t miss the opportunity to get them talking. First, fast, and frequent: that’s what we teach our agents when it comes to internet leads. The Realtor who is going to win over an internet buyer is the Realtor who is going to get back to them first, gets them what they want fast, and stays in touch frequently.

Every first phone call & email to an internet lead must be completed from an agent’s mobile phone. The call is simple: when you are notified by email to your smartphone that you have a new lead call the number of the lead immediately AND send an email. Almost all smartphones these days hyperlink telephone numbers so that when you click on them, your phone will dial the number.

Setting up email templates in your phone will cut down on the amount of time it takes you to email that first message from your phone. If you’re using a Blackberry, you can use templates. If you are using an iPhone updated to the new iOS 5, you can use what’s called keyboard shortcuts in the settings app under the general section, then keyboard.

The Bluetooth Earpiece

Earpieces are valuable as they allow you to multitask much easier. A bluetooth earpiece like the Voyager Pro HD, can sense when the product is actually in your ear and also allows you to answer your phone more quickly.

Using an earpiece allows both of your hands to be free. This will give you an opportunity to look through your notes for a particular lead while the phone is ringing. Most people do nothing while the phone is ringing; they wait to see if someone will answer the phone or if a voicemail will pick up.

Don’t take the time to look through the lead data before you call them. Just dial the number and then look. If a voicemail is what you get, leave a message. While you’re listening to the voicemail, leave a note on the lead in shorthand like “1/12/12 LM (Left Message)” in your CRM tool or lead management tool. So let’s review:

Dial the number from your cell phone.

While the phone is ringing, review the details of the internet lead.

If a lead answers do more listening than talking and take notes while the lead is speaking.

If you receive a voicemail, while the message is playing, leave a shorthand note.

Move on to the next lead.

Tablets, Laptops Make Prospecting Easier

With tablets (including iPads) becoming more popular, it’s becoming easier for businesses to conduct business from anywhere. Laptops and tablets can be excellent tools for becoming more efficient and help you to add time in the day where you didn’t think you had it.

Whether you are in the office or on the go, having your iPad or laptop handy to make prospecting calls while you have free time is definitely dollar productive. For example, we had an agent in our office who told us that when he and his family were headed out to go shopping, his wife drove the car while he sat in the passenger seat, iPad in hand, earpiece on, making prospecting calls to his internet leads. On the drive to the mall from his house, he was able to make 6 prospecting calls, bringing his total call number to 102 for the day.

After all, the more calls you can make, the more irons you have in the fire.

Email Templates, Apps & Alerts Make it Easier

Click to Enlarge

With most of your email coming to your cell phone, managing it all can be quite cumbersome. You should have two standard emails for new internet leads that you use from your smartphone. One of those emails would be for someone you have talked to and the other for a lead you have not spoken with.

In a Blackberry, you can set these up as templates for a quick email to your new lead. Not only will you be calling the lead (from your cell phone) immediately but you’ll also be following up with an email.

iPhones make this relatively easy now with the iOS 5 update. They use something called “keyboard shortcuts.” This simply means you can simply type “futc,” (follow up to call) and then the spacebar key which will actually produce your templated email to your new lead.

Android phones make this possible through the use of an app made specifically for use with Gmail.

You may want to have additional email templates that you use for prospecting that you will setup in your CRM tool or store on your laptop, computer, or tablet. Using templates will speed up the amount of time it takes you to prospect.

Another very useful feature of smartphones is the ability to set different alert tones for different emails based on subject, sender, etc. This doesn’t work on the iPhone, you say? Oh – but it does! There is an app called MailTones available through iTunes that makes this feature available on an iPhone. The MailTones app also assists in mimicking ‘push’ email like on a Blackberry, allowing you to receive emails more instantaneously. Setting a specific alert tone for internet leads will allow an agent to know when they need to respond quickly to lead with a phone call and an email. The faster you respond to internet inquiry, the more likely you are to convert that business.

Get creative and you’ll be able to find many more opportunities for additional time in your day. Cell phones, tablets, laptops, etc. are tools to make our lives easier and more efficient if applied in the right way.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1541-efficient-internet-lead-management-with-your-mobile-devices/feed/10Open House Music with Logitech Mini Boomboxhttp://www.techforagents.com/1528-open-house-music-with-logitech-mini-boombox/
http://www.techforagents.com/1528-open-house-music-with-logitech-mini-boombox/#respondWed, 02 Nov 2011 17:07:35 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1528An open house filled with awkward silences is a recipe for disaster. You probably have noticed that department stores use music to encourage a certain emotion out of their shoppers, […]

]]>An open house filled with awkward silences is a recipe for disaster. You probably have noticed that department stores use music to encourage a certain emotion out of their shoppers, and the same can be done for your open house visitors. With the Logitech Mini Boombox, things just got easier.

In a nutshell, the Mini Boombox from Logitech is a bluetooth speaker that can connect to any device that offers bluetooth connectivity. This includes most smart phones, iPads, and laptops. Most agents I’ve spoken with neglect to include music to avoid the hassle, but with a bluetooth speaker you simply sit it down next to your smart phone preloaded with music and voila; instant soothing environment for your visitors.

Engadget has a demo with a Logitech rep below for you to check out. This will run you just shy of $100 (with more expensive versions that have better sound quality) so it’s not exactly cheap. To set it apart from it’s competitors, the Mini Boombox includes a touch interface and a microphone for you to also use as a speakerphone.

Investing in a tool that could possibly increase your conversion ratios is always worth a consideration, so definitely watch the video and let me know what you think below. Would you spend $100 on a bluetooth speaker?

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1528-open-house-music-with-logitech-mini-boombox/feed/0CRM Spotlight: Top Producer 8ihttp://www.techforagents.com/1508-crm-spotlight-top-producer-8i/
http://www.techforagents.com/1508-crm-spotlight-top-producer-8i/#commentsMon, 31 Oct 2011 16:01:22 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1508Top Producer has been a leading CRM product for real estate agents for quite some time now, and their latest suite of products and focus have kept them ripe with […]

Top Producer has been a leading CRM product for real estate agents for quite some time now, and their latest suite of products and focus have kept them ripe with the latest trends and technologies useful for any real estate business.

You’re probably going to want your database to be accessible everywhere; in the office, in the car, at a listing appointment, during a showing tour – everywhere. You may need to quickly look up a phone number for a client you forgot to call, or perhaps schedule a hot showing for a buyer you just found that would absolutely love one of your listings.

Either way, having access to your database should be one of the key features you look for in your next real estate database. Here’s an intro video on what Top Producer is and what you can expect from it.

Follow Up with Action Plans

Simple having a database won’t propel you past this year’s production goals – you’ll need to proactively follow up with all your contacts in your database. A contact in your database that does not have at least one follow up activity assigned is completely worthless. Top Producer solves this using their Action Plans feature. Here, you’ll be able to create customized action plans for any particular event and assign this plan to a contact of your choosing.

A contact in your database that does not have at least one follow up activity assigned is completely worthless.

Say for example, you’d like to follow up with a client immediately after selling their home. You probably have an idea on the frequency and type of communication you’d like to use to keep in touch. A few days after closing escrow, you call and make sure all is well. A week afterwards, you thank them again for being such an awesome client and let them know you’ll stay in touch. Then a year after their closing, you follow up and congratulate them on their 1 year anniversary and send them a nice gift.

Why would you store this plan in your head, which in my case lacks long term memory support, when Top Producer can easily implement it for you? You create your action plan, then have this plan available anytime you need to follow up on a closing. On the day you’d normally call a client (a few days later in this instance) your Top Producer calendar will have the activity listed ready for you tackle.

The Hidden Benefit
Setting and forgetting, my friend. It’s that simple. When you free your mind of having to remember all the tiny details of your business, you’re free to improve your skills with prospecting and lead generation, brainstorm your next marketing piece, or actually remember your significant other’s birthday. You see? You’re not the only one that benefits!

Marketing. Lots and Lots of It.

There’s one thing that Top Producer has no shortage of, and that’s marketing pieces. When you activate your Top Producer license, your account comes jam packed with material you can use for any client. You’ll have a library complete with flyers, letters, email templates; you name it.

While a majority of this you’ll want to customize for your business, a surprisingly majority of it is ready-to-use immediately. In fact, you’ll probably want to start off with the default piece so you know what works and what doesn’t. If a particular flyer doesn’t jive with your clients, you can easily change it using their built in editor.

Support TechForAgents

If you’re considering a new CRM and would like to give Top Producer a try, you can support TechForAgents by following the below link to submit your order.

You can always visit Top Producer directly (non-affiliate link) by visiting TopProducer.com.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1508-crm-spotlight-top-producer-8i/feed/3Export Your Google Voice Data through Takeouthttp://www.techforagents.com/1483-export-google-voice-data-takeout/
http://www.techforagents.com/1483-export-google-voice-data-takeout/#respondWed, 07 Sep 2011 13:25:09 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1483Google has announced that it has added Google Voice to it’s list of supported products for exporting data through Google Takeout. Real estate brokers should be pretty excited about this […]

]]>Google has announced that it has added Google Voice to it’s list of supported products for exporting data through Google Takeout. Real estate brokers should be pretty excited about this announcement. Now you have a convenient way for your agents to export text messages, voicemails, and call logs for any client.

As the methods for documenting the communication between real estate agents and clients becomes easier, more and more brokers will look to encourage their real estate agents to submit this information along with the rest of their paperwork when handing in files set to close.

I’ve taken the time this morning to quickly show you how the export process works, and detail what you’ll end up with. The only caveat I see so far is that you cannot filter what information gets exported; it’s all or nothing. If you’d like to turn in this information your broker, you’ll have to sift through the tremendous amounts of data until things get easier.

Google also created a “peculiar” video to tag along with the news, shown below.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1483-export-google-voice-data-takeout/feed/05 Real Estate Email Newsletter Templateshttp://www.techforagents.com/1448-newsletter-templates/
http://www.techforagents.com/1448-newsletter-templates/#respondWed, 24 Aug 2011 15:13:02 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1448Sending any kind of marketing to your past clients has always been a great way to keep in touch with your past clients and anyone you’ve built a solid relationship […]

]]>Sending any kind of marketing to your past clients has always been a great way to keep in touch with your past clients and anyone you’ve built a solid relationship with. One of the tried and true avenues are newsletters, but have you considering investing in newsletter templates to spice things up a bit?

Sending your newsletters through the post office is costly and besides – who wants to spend more on marketing in a down economy? Consider lowering your expenses by converting your newsletters to email. Below, you’ll find 5 awesome email newsletter templates that you can begin using in your real estate business.

Karma Newsletter Template

What can you do with 20 different colors and 10 various modules for content? Anything! Even better is that it comes ready to be integrated with MailChimp; software built for your email newsletter marketing.

Life Newsletter Template

This newsletter comes in tons of different formats, but the best for real estate is probably the full text layout with images sprinkled in here and there. Life comes with 6 layout options and 6 color options, leaving you the flexibility to mold your newsletter to your own tastes.

Vivid Newsletter Template

Want to really get your client’s attention? This bright newsletter, named “Vivid” (how appropriate!), comes in three color variations and has a few layout options as well.

Picking a newsletter template like this is probably more of a risk, but if you can get more attention by being a little different, you might be able to attract more clients than traditional email marketing would. It’s best to A/B test this, meaning try your normal email newsletter for a week, track results, then make a switch and compare the click-through rates. Which performs better with your client base?

Door Newsletter Template

I love the door newsletter theme because of it’s big spot for your mugshot. The theme also has a bigger focus on the text, which should help getting more of your message in.

Another idea is to include a call-to-action in that spot, rather than your business photo. Consider including an image link to your property search to increase your conversions with both your newsletter and personal website.

Pure Text Email Newsletter

Perhaps you’re just looking to send over the latest news without having to choose, crop, and resize the images you decide to include? If that’s you, then consider the “Pure Text” email newsletter by artwork79.

This theme allows you to have a prime focus on sending useful information to your past clients, and not just a newsletter filled with fluff. If you do choose this theme, be sure to spend some quality time on the information you send. Make sure you consider adding information that they would find very useful so that they’re looking to get it each month.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1448-newsletter-templates/feed/05 Ways to Increase Traffic to your Next Open Househttp://www.techforagents.com/1416-increase-traffic-open-house/
http://www.techforagents.com/1416-increase-traffic-open-house/#respondMon, 22 Aug 2011 17:35:13 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1416Open House! Aside from prancing up and down the street shouting at the to of your lungs, what are some ways that we could increase traffic to an open house? […]

]]>Open House! Aside from prancing up and down the street shouting at the to of your lungs, what are some ways that we could increase traffic to an open house? That’s what reader Crystal Tost wanted to know, and in this post we’ll detail some techniques I personally use.

Choose a Home Close to a Major Thoroughfare

Open up Google Maps, and locate the property you’re planning on having open. Now find the closest major street in relation to this home. How many turns will your visitors have to make?

You’re probably better off with a home that has fewer than 5 turns. A home that is close to a major street will require minimal signage to guide the visitor to your open house; leaving you more signage for the next strategy I use that proves very useful in increasing traffic.

Place Bandit Signs Every 20 Feet on Both Sides of the Road

An hour or so before your open house, take a drive to the major street we spoke about in the tip above.

Next, place the small, directional open house signs available nearly everywhere roughly 30 feet from each other on both sides of the road. I liked to place at least 4 on each side, giving us a total of 8 signs to catch a driver’s attention. Seem like too much? That’s the idea. If I can get a visitor to pay attention to our signs, then we have a better chance of increasing traffic to our open house.

Check with your local authorities as there may be laws against bandit sign usage. I’ve had mine snapped up in Houston that enacted that law quite some time ago, but I still see agents doing it anyway.

Consistently using the next few strategies will be very important if you’re stuck in this predicament.

Call Everyone on the Street

It’s important to spread the word about your open house to get those nosy neighbors in to see the home. I know they’re not who you’re looking for, but they provide something very valuable – feedback.

Feedback will help you optimize the home’s appearance for attracting the right buyer. Feedback will help you determine what are the true selling points of the home. Besides – they might have a friend or relative looking to move in to the area.

Use this reverse lookup tool to find every homeowner on the street of your open house. Some may not be listed, but you can call all that you do find with public phone numbers.

Door Knock for Open House Success

Got nerves of steel? Great. This one requires that you get out of your comfort zone and arrive earlier that morning to go door to door to drum up some business.

Door knocking is an age old marketing technique (those pesky kids need to stop trying to sell me new electricity!), but if used effectively, will not only increase your open house traffic but your popularity as well.

By personally door knocking a neighbor, you are potraying quite a few desireable qualities in a real estate agent:

You’ll do whatever it take to sell a home.

You’re not afraid to get out and talk to people.

You focus your attention on their subdivision and are eager to sell homes in it.

You hold open houses. (Some agents refuse to)

Here is a script I would use when visiting with a neighbor:

Hi there! I’m Steve with XYZ Realty. I just wanted to quickly stop by and let you know I was having an open house for the Jones’s a few houses down, and I wanted to invite you to stop by. Here’s my card – if you know anyone interested in moving into the area, please invite them over!

Oh, and by the way, I’ll have some drinks and cookies for you to enjoy. Thanks! I hope you have a good one.

Sunday Afternoon from 1-5PM is Best

Having an open house during the week isn’t a bad idea; at least you’re still marketing the property. However, to get the most visitors, you probably want to wait until a majority of your possible clientele is off of work. The weekends.

Saturday and Sunday are great days for an open house, but one day has proven time and time again to be more effective than the rest: Sunday. You don’t want to hold it too early due because of church and other religious commitments, but the afternoon has a much higher chance to catching people out on the roads just after lunch.

What are some techniques you currently employ to increase visitor traffic? Feel free to share your thoughts in our real estate forum.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1416-increase-traffic-open-house/feed/0Real Estate Technology Weeklyhttp://www.techforagents.com/1391-real-estate-technology-weekly/
http://www.techforagents.com/1391-real-estate-technology-weekly/#commentsThu, 18 Aug 2011 13:48:06 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1391Aloha! I wanted to try out something new today, so I decided to round up all the news for the week and share it in one longer, condensed list. If […]

]]>Aloha! I wanted to try out something new today, so I decided to round up all the news for the week and share it in one longer, condensed list. If you find this useful, please post a comment and let me know and I’ll continue to do this weekly.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1391-real-estate-technology-weekly/feed/4Firefox 6 Hits the Webhttp://www.techforagents.com/1381-firefox-6/
http://www.techforagents.com/1381-firefox-6/#respondWed, 17 Aug 2011 13:39:42 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1381Last night, Mozilla decided to launch their next version of Firefox – Firefox 6. This updated browser for both the Mac and PC features a sleek new look and faster […]

]]>Last night, Mozilla decided to launch their next version of Firefox – Firefox 6. This updated browser for both the Mac and PC features a sleek new look and faster speed. I converted to using Firefox quite some time ago, but the only reason I’ll fire up Internet Explorer every now and then is to browse the MLS.

Which brings me to my next point. Why does it seem that MLS software is only optimized for IE? What gives?! I understand that a majority of internet users still use IE, but that’s only because they haven’t experienced the awesomeness that is Firefox 6 and Google Chrome. Trust me – the moment you fire it up, experience how useful the addons can be, and how much time the sync integration saves you as you travel from mobile to desktop, you’ll never want to go back.

]]>To build a new, fresh community of peeps focused on real estate technology, I’ve added forums to TechForAgents. Our forums are going to be well maintained and moderated by yours truly. There’s no shortage of real estate forums on the web, so here’s a run down of why I feel this one will be different.

No Spam

Moderation of all discussions will be one of my core responsibilities at TechForAgents. I’ll make sure to bring down the hammer on any spammers, blatant advertising, and link farms before it becomes a nuisance.

TechForAgents is my full-time home, so I’ll always be writing and participating all throughout the day. I may not catch everything early into the morning, but you can rest assured it’ll be pruned the very next day.

This consistent type of moderation is something I feel that really lacks among other forums on the net.

Simple, Easy to Use

I’m not going to have 20 different categories with a gargantuan list of rules for each one. These real estate forums are simple – No advertising or spamming.

This is going to be a community of people in the real estate industry who want to help each other succeed in various forms. Be it in their marketing, SEO strategy, web presence, lifestyle branding; you name it.

Over time, my goal is to build an awesome archive and resource of information for new and veteran real estate agents. I can’t do it alone though – I need your help!

Easy on the Eyes

I’ve purposely themed our forums to look just like TechForAgents. There isn’t any kind of major control panel to wade through – just a simple interface thanks to Vanilla, and free, open-sourced forum software. There may be some slight tweaks that still need to be made, but I’ve spent quite a bit of time making sure everything looks great.

Join our Real Estate Forums

If you’re interested in being part of a real estate community and helping it grow – please join me in the forums.

]]>Ubertor blogged today about Gary Chambers – a real estate broker who gave a talk at the Saskatchewan Association of Realtors regarding social networking. It’s a great video to watch during lunch today and is about 15 minutes long.

He stategy revolves around lifestyle branding and personal marketing through his online messages. He works to convey his own personality in his marketing, and it looks like it’s working out great for him.

First off, I’m amazed at how he manages a Century 21 brokerage, runs a farm, and still has time to visit associations like this and give talks on his online marketing strategy and social networking. Way to go, Gary!

Social Networking

Gary focused more in this talk on personal marketing and branding, which in a nutshell, means to convey more than just real estate information in your message. You’ll have to talk more about your life on and off of work to show your potential clients who you really are.

This can be really hard for a lot of people. Most aren’t comfortable with sharing their personal life online through social networking via sites like Facebook and Twitter. For those who are, however, there’s a niche to be tapped in your local real estate market.

Here’s an example of a Facebook post with traditional online marketing vs. marketing with a personal touch:

Traditional Marketing

Home sales in the Westbourne subdivision rose 12.5% this month, with a total of 7 sales. Of those 7 sales, 2 were foreclosures selling at an average price of $112,594.

In this example, we’re detailing the statistics of recent home sales but in a very dry manner. An engineer might love it, but to target the widest audience and capture their attention, you’ll probably be better off adding a bit of personality to it.

Personal Marketing

Wow – It looks like foreclosures are dropping sales prices in Westbourne too. Looks like I’ll have to brush up on my short sales skills soon just in case. Check out the stats at my blog.

In this example, I added more of my own inflection on the statistics, and offered readers to view the raw numbers at my blog. The post was more conversational in nature, and more inviting to readers to comment and share their opinion.

The basic idea is to be more personal in your messages online. Stay away from being a machine spitting out raw numbers and statistics. Add your own personal touch and opinions in your Facebook and Twitter updates by conveying how the information makes you feel.

Being great at sales has always been about selling yourself to your clients, and social networking has offered a way to reach more people for those of us willing to expose who we are to complete strangers.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1333-social-networking-gary-chambers/feed/0Motorola Mobility Acquired by Googlehttp://www.techforagents.com/1316-motorola-mobility-acquired-by-google/
http://www.techforagents.com/1316-motorola-mobility-acquired-by-google/#respondMon, 15 Aug 2011 16:36:05 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1316Google has decided to snap up the mobility division of Motorola today for a whopping $12.5 Billion. Their Android operating system isn't affected by this acquisition, however. The acquisition will be run along side Google's existing mobile operations as a separate business all-together.

Google has decided to snap up the mobility division of Motorola today for a whopping $12.5 Billion. Their Android operating system isn’t affected by this acquisition, however. The acquisition will be run along side Google’s existing mobile operations as a separate business all-together.

This acquisition will not change our commitment to run Android as an open platform. Motorola will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. We will run Motorola as a separate business. Many hardware partners have contributed to Android’s success and we look forward to continuing to work with all of them to deliver outstanding user experiences.

The Motorola Mobility Acquisition and Real Estate Agents

What does this mean for us? We’re looking at the possibility of better handsets with improved integration with their Android operating system. Now Google has the ability to work directly with and dictate the direction that a mobile handset maker takes. The increased control should lead to a better Android experience overall in the next few years.

This leads me to believe that Google was dissatisfied with handset makers with devices powered by Android. Perhaps Google thought that now was a good time to take control of one, and dictate how a handset should be designed and developed for their software. Apple does the same thing (craft their operating system and develop their own handsets), so if anything this is a step to compete directly with Apple.

I’d love to see some amazing handsets as a result of this acquisition. I love the idea that Android is an open source operating system, and completely contradictory towards Apple’s closed nature with their proprietary software. Each has it’s pros and cons; I’ve been an Apple fanatic for quite some time but always shared a keen interest in Android.

Time will tell, of course. In the coming months/years, if I read about any new handsets from Google as a result of this acquisition directly I’ll be sure to share that here at TechForAgents.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1316-motorola-mobility-acquired-by-google/feed/0iPhone 5 Production Ramps Uphttp://www.techforagents.com/1293-iphone-5-production-ramps-up/
http://www.techforagents.com/1293-iphone-5-production-ramps-up/#respondMon, 15 Aug 2011 15:17:18 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1293Are you ready for the next iPhone? This morning Digitimes reportedthat the total volume of iPhones production has increased by 12-13%, which is roughly 6 million more units. Every time […]

Are you ready for the next iPhone? This morning Digitimes reportedthat the total volume of iPhones production has increased by 12-13%, which is roughly 6 million more units.

Every time Apple releases a new iPhone, I sell my old ones (for my wife and I) for more than the cost to re-up my contract with AT&T. People are willing to pay for iPhones that are not locked into a contract, and while you technically still are, the phone isn’t. This Lifehacker article explains in great detail how this works exactly, and how I usually come out with money in my pocket from the upgrade.

Expected Release Date

The new iPhone is expected to be released along side iOS 5, which introduces a variety of cloud based features which should help alleviate the storage bloat the inevitably creeps into hardware. As apps, music, and movies become bigger in size, the need for a bigger iPhone goes up, and so do prices. Having storage in the cloud is one way to alleviate this issue; we just have to rely on Apple to knock it out of the park with the release (which they’re pretty good at doing).

Multiplesources have rumored a release should come sometime this fall (September – October’ish), which I tend to agree with as I’ve yet to see Apple release a phone in the holiday season.

iPhone 5 Concept Photos

No one really knows what the iPhone 5 will look like, but cultofmac.com has a post dedicated to artist renditions of what they think it may turn out to look like. In the past, some of these renditions have been based on oversea supplier leaks; mostly leaked cases that show an overall form of the iPhone.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1293-iphone-5-production-ramps-up/feed/05 Productive Things To Do During a Slow Open Househttp://www.techforagents.com/1270-5-productive-things-to-do-during-a-slow-open-house/
http://www.techforagents.com/1270-5-productive-things-to-do-during-a-slow-open-house/#commentsFri, 12 Aug 2011 16:28:30 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1270I never had an open house that I didn’t over-prepare for. High quality flyers, memorizing the details of the home, and spending time canvasing the neighborhood all went into my […]

]]>I never had an open house that I didn’t over-prepare for. High quality flyers, memorizing the details of the home, and spending time canvasing the neighborhood all went into my prep-time. I was ready and pumped to hold this house open and meet new potential clients. Preparation was my middle name; except that I didn’t prepare for no one showing up.

You can never control the amount of traffic an open house will get. You can do your best to pick out a marketable property on a busy intersection, but you never really can tell if anyone will actually stop by. I’ve held open houses in torrential rain that have had more visitors than on a bright sunny day. Predicability and open houses should not be used in the same sentence.

If you’re stuck in an open house for a few hours that isn’t showing any signs of life, instead of looking through their refrigerator (wait, you don’t do that?), try the following 5 things to help keep you dollar productive.

1. Hop on Facebook and Twitter

Seriously? Seriously. I’m going to go against the norm and say that I can be dollar-productive while on social networks. How? Talk about the slow open house. Mention how much prep time you did with getting everything perfect today, and how you can’t believe with the nice weather that more people aren’t stopping by.

The message you’re looking to convey to your friends and followers is that you over-prepare for your clients. You spent quality time making sure everything is perfect, rehearsing what you’d like to say to anyone you met, and showed up 30 minutes early to give the house a “one over” to make minor adjustments.

This can serve as a reminder that you’re passionate about what you do, and that you’re still in the business. They might know someone whose agent drags their feet when it comes to holding an open house, and they’ll realize that you’d kill for an opportunity to show a house that will get people through it.

The key here is to not waste time chatting with friends. Talk about the property, the open house, your business, but stay away from personal issues as it’ll suck your time and focus away.

2. Call Expired Listings

Before you leave for the day, hop on your MLS and print out a list of expired properties. Make sure you narrow the list to markets and price ranges that you service, and then spend time at the slow open house cross-referencing the property addresses with public phone numbers. Here’s the free reverse address finder that I currently use.

Take the time to call the expired properties and see if they’re still looking to sell their home. If they’re contemplating re-listing with their previous agent, what do they plan on doing different? Shouldn’t they consider at least meeting with one other agent just in case there is a home selling strategy they overlooked?

Sellers are mostly concerned with getting the most money in the least amount of time, so make sure to have a script ready to tackle this concern head on. Make sure to stress that they gave their last agent three months, but all you are asking for is 30 minutes of their time (for a listing appointment).

Be careful about talking negative about a past agent; remain neutral. You could be talking about their spouse or favorite cousin.

3. Email Your Database

Because this time is completely void of distractions, you’ll really be able to pour some serious thought into why the market is doing what it’s doing in your local area. Log in to your MLS and pull up some statistics to include and if you’re savvy with spreadsheets, use them to create a nice looking chart for visual aid.

4. Call Your Network and Sphere

This would be a perfect time to see how your past clients are doing. Pick up that cell phone and start dialing, because chances are that they know someone right now looking to buy or sell a home and all it takes is a subtle hint that you’re still in the business for that referral.

You should be calling your network and sphere, which includes your past clients and anyone you built a solid relationship with, at least 4 times a year. Here’s the long term follow up plan I used if you haven’t implemented one already. Feel free to use verbatim or customize to your heart’s content.

5. Take More Pictures and Market the Property Online

When a seller comes home and finds out that absolutely no one visited while they were out, they’re probably going to think that you both wasted your time. They might even think it’s your fault, and that someone else would be able to do it better.

Instead of attempting to explain that the amount of traffic an open house achieves is beyond your control, let them know how much quality time you spent marketing their property online and show them their home on Craiglist, Trulia, Zillow, local message boards, your Facebook Fan Page, and possibly even in search engine results (if you have a search engine friendly website).

Shouldn’t you have done this already? Of course, but you had the time to do it again and now their property’s exposure has just increased even more. You didn’t let a slow open house stop you from marketing their beautiful home. You even spent that time taking new, high quality photos that will look gorgeous for all the new marketing you have in mind.

Stay Dollar-Productive In Your Next Open House

If you offer a seller nothing for their time, they’ll look to spend it elsewhere. An open house doesn’t have to be a waste of time if you’re proactive, and by being so, you’ll reaffirm to the seller that you’re definitely the right person for the job.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1270-5-productive-things-to-do-during-a-slow-open-house/feed/2Stylo Real Estate WordPress Themehttp://www.techforagents.com/1215-stylo-real-estate-wordpress-theme/
http://www.techforagents.com/1215-stylo-real-estate-wordpress-theme/#respondWed, 10 Aug 2011 15:05:28 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1215A new WordPress theme has hit the shelves over at Themeforest today, and this theme comes with tons of features like unlimited color variations, a built in property manager, SEO-ready, and […]

A new WordPress theme has hit the shelves over at Themeforest today, and this theme comes with tons of features like unlimited color variations, a built in property manager, SEO-ready, and a custom loan calculator.

I really like the integration with Google Maps and grid display of property listings. Definitely worth a look if you’re in the market for a new WordPress theme for your real estate blog.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1215-stylo-real-estate-wordpress-theme/feed/0Cheap Stock Photos for Your Blog Postshttp://www.techforagents.com/1194-cheap-stock-photos-blog-posts/
http://www.techforagents.com/1194-cheap-stock-photos-blog-posts/#commentsTue, 09 Aug 2011 14:50:34 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1194Instead of slamming your readers with a gigantic wall of text, many bloggers will use stock photography (professional photos) to separate the content and make their blog look nice. The […]

]]>Instead of slamming your readers with a gigantic wall of text, many bloggers will use stock photography (professional photos) to separate the content and make their blog look nice. The problem lately has been the cost. I used to visit iStockPhoto when their prices were much lower, but lately they’ve been on the rise.

Not anymore! At Photodune, which just launched it’s public open beta today, you can get a wide variety of cheap stock photos. Even the smaller photos, which usually suffice for a real estate blog post, are only $1. Compared to sites like Shutterstock and iStockPhoto, this is a thrift sale.

I’ve included various real estate stock photography below so you can get a feel for the selection.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1194-cheap-stock-photos-blog-posts/feed/1Is Google+ Isolating Us?http://www.techforagents.com/1181-google-isolating-us/
http://www.techforagents.com/1181-google-isolating-us/#respondMon, 08 Aug 2011 20:05:36 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1181Social networking is all about building relationships. Since that buzz word has become hot, this has pretty much been hammered into our heads through training and what the experts predict […]

]]>Social networking is all about building relationships. Since that buzz word has become hot, this has pretty much been hammered into our heads through training and what the experts predict to be the trend in online social networking.

Its (Google+) sharing architecture actively contradicts tribe behavior and isolates the individual. You can create any type of group you like with circles – but the other group members don’t choose to be there. You can mark someone as a friend and they have no choice in the matter, whether to affirm or deny. They don’t even know what you’ve called the circle you’ve put them in.

What Adriel believes is that the inherent grouping nature of other social platforms like Twitter or Facebook is the key towards driving the social relationships you’re building forward. The anonymity of circles, and your place in other user’s circles, violates this golden rule and inadvertently isolates Google+ users.

It’s different; that’s for sure. Different isn’t always good, but I would of preferred Google to do something different than to “+1” themselves as another typical social network competing for traffic and users. Google+ is their take on social networking; their attempt to be fresh.

Not all Google products have been slam dunks (read: Google Wave). Google+ still has a lot of room to mature and it’s presence in headlines lately affirms that it’s getting the attention it needs as a new product to take baby steps in the right direction.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1181-google-isolating-us/feed/0Monday Freebie: FSBO Inventory Sheethttp://www.techforagents.com/1155-monday-freebie-fsbo-inventory-sheet/
http://www.techforagents.com/1155-monday-freebie-fsbo-inventory-sheet/#commentsMon, 08 Aug 2011 15:55:17 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1155One of the ways I generate new listings was to visit FSBO’s in my area and offer to add their home into my FSBO inventory. At first, this may not […]

]]>One of the ways I generate new listings was to visit FSBO’s in my area and offer to add their home into my FSBO inventory. At first, this may not seem like the seller would be willing to do this, but it all comes down to the presentation.

Hi [Seller], I was just driving by and noticed the FSBO sign outside. I’m a real estate agent here specializing in this area. Would you mind if I added your home to my FSBO Inventory? (me)

What’s that? (seller)

I have clients right now looking for a home. If I find that someone may like the features and amenities of your home, I can bring them by for you. That’s a win for you, right?

Well, if you ever meet someone that wants to sell their home and doesn’t want to go the FSBO route, you might think of me. That’s a definite win for me. So you see – I’m into building win/win relationships. (me)

That’s just one example of a script you can use. You can use it verbatim or customize it as you see fit, but as-is it definitely works!

You might be asking yourself, “Why should I approach FSBO’s? They obviously don’t want me there.” There are actually a lot of reasons that you’d want to meet them. Here’s the most important ones:

Once they sell their home, you might have an opportunity to be their buyer’s agent.

You might have a buyer for their home, and they may be willing to pay you a commission.

They might get sick and tired of selling their home FSBO, and call you to list their home.

They might know someone right away looking to sell their home and is looking for an agent.

So without further ado, here is the inventory sheet that I would keep in my car at all times and pull out in case I saw a FSBO sign. Simply pull this out, approach the seller with the above script, and then use the inventory sheet to walk through their home and get the particulars. Remember to follow up once you’ve met them; building relationships is key! I recommend weekly follow-up.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1155-monday-freebie-fsbo-inventory-sheet/feed/1The Anatomy of a Real Estate Businesshttp://www.techforagents.com/1143-anatomy-real-estate-business/
http://www.techforagents.com/1143-anatomy-real-estate-business/#respondSun, 07 Aug 2011 19:16:39 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1143Most agents that I’ve trained or coached in the past failed to see the big picture. Real estate isn’t some intricate art form – there’s a simple set of actions […]

]]>Most agents that I’ve trained or coached in the past failed to see the big picture. Real estate isn’t some intricate art form – there’s a simple set of actions that yields success. Simply perfect your execution of them and get ready for the big bucks.

I designed this flow chart for some students a few years ago and stumbled upon it again after cleaning out an old closet this weekend. I put a bit of work in it to get it web-ready, and now it’s ready to share. I hope this helps you like it did for me!

Moral: Everyone you meet is a lead. Follow up with all your leads on a consistent basis before and after the sale and your business will grow exponentially.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1143-anatomy-real-estate-business/feed/0Are You On LinkedIn Yet?http://www.techforagents.com/1126-linkedin-yet/
http://www.techforagents.com/1126-linkedin-yet/#respondSat, 06 Aug 2011 13:11:08 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1126Back in November of 2010, LinkedIn was adding around 1 member every second. Now, in their very first earning’s call as a public company, LinkedIn is now details that they’re […]

Back in November of 2010, LinkedIn was adding around 1 member every second. Now, in their very first earning’s call as a public company, LinkedIn is now details that they’re adding 2 members every second. That’s over a million users per year!

LinkedIn is a site that allows you to network professionally with past clients or people you know. Whereas Facebook is more focused on personal relationships with friends and family, LinkedIn is centered around business relationships. You can take it a step further by defining your past work history, experience, and even request past clients to submit recommendations for your real estate services.

Their monthly traffic is pretty astounding:

And traffic is up. LinkedIn is seeing page views of 7.1 billion, an increase of 80% from the second quarter of 2010. Mobile page views for LinkedIn have increased approximately 400% year-over-year. LinkedIn now has more unique monthly visitors than MySpace and Twitter.

]]>A business card is the real estate agent “bread and butter” marketing tool. For most agents, it’s the first piece of marketing you’ll ever purchase and distribute. Sometimes it’ll include a glamour shot, and other times it’ll just be a way to get your name out there.

I’ve gone through and picked 5 great templates that are dirt cheap. Each one of these templates is only a measly $6. That won’t even make a dent in your coffee fund!

Real Estate Personal Business Card by jimbox

I love this template – it’s simple, bold color of red and unique house logo sets you apart from all the lousy business cards that other real estate agents are throwing around. A large white space on the front and back leaves room for your business photo if you’d like to include one.

I personally never included a professional photo, but I entered real estate at a young age and didn’t want my prospective client to get the wrong impression (that I was just some punk kid).

Real Estate Agent Business Card Template by ColorX

This card actually includes a space specifically designed for your glamour shot. This blue and green theme is a great starting card for anyone just entering the business, and it even includes an image of an iconic part of real estate; a key!

Simple and Classic Business Card by Elebroburo

If you’re trying to break into luxury real estate, you’re going to need a business card that’s a bit more modern and elegant. This simple template uses a font that depicts more of a luxury real estate service rather than a generic one like the templates above.

The bold red color also draws attention if scattered among a stack of other business cards. You really want to try and stand out from the crowd, and this card should help accomplish this on the subliminal level.

Effective Business Cards by DarkoAb

Do you want more flexibility over your color scheme? This business card template comes pre-built with a variety of colors that are easily customizable with the included PSD template. It’s generic nature makes it perfect for a new or even veteran agent who wants to depict a more simplistic business card for their real estate business.

Clean Business Card by Dezio

Good ol’ black and white to the rescue! I love how the slogan is a one sentence spot on the back of the card. “Real estate without the headaches.” Feel feel to use that!

The front can be customized with the included PSD, but you can default to the original text of the company up top if that suits you best.

More Business Cards at Graphic River

You can continue browsing even more business cards over at Graphic River. Most business cards there are around $6 and includes a PSD (photoshop file – your graphic designer knows what this is) for your to use to add your own information.

If you don’t have a designer, feel free to contact me for help with customizing these business card templates.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1107-5-business-card-templates-real-estate-agents/feed/0Techcrunch Giving Away an iPad 2http://www.techforagents.com/1099-techcrunch-giving-ipad-2/
http://www.techforagents.com/1099-techcrunch-giving-ipad-2/#respondFri, 05 Aug 2011 18:44:37 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1099Have a few minutes to throw your name in a hat? Techcrunchis giving a way a free iPad 2 loaded with a couple of games (read: Cut the Rope and […]

Have a few minutes to throw your name in a hat? Techcrunchis giving a way a free iPad 2 loaded with a couple of games (read: Cut the Rope and Cut the Rope:Experiments) that I think you’d find useful to add to your real estate gadgetry.

All you need to do is “like” TechCrunch on Facebook and either comment or tweet to spread the word. The contest ends on August 7th – read more about the contest here.

I personally use an iPad to sign PDF documents and read my book collection in my free time. Whip one of these bad boys out in a listing presentation and prepare to “wow” your clients.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1099-techcrunch-giving-ipad-2/feed/0Trulia Launches Celeb Real Estate Bloghttp://www.techforagents.com/1083-trulia-launches-celeb-real-estate-blog/
http://www.techforagents.com/1083-trulia-launches-celeb-real-estate-blog/#respondFri, 05 Aug 2011 03:12:11 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1083Every real estate agent wants to increase their averages sales price of sold homes. The buyers are normally well qualified, the homes are magnificent, and you are exposed to a […]

Every real estate agent wants to increase their averages sales price of sold homes. The buyers are normally well qualified, the homes are magnificent, and you are exposed to a network of other successful, wealthy clients to add to your network.

Trulia knows there’s a keen interest in the real estate of the wealthy; most notably celebrities and professional athletes. Their homes are scattered across the United States, and most of us are guilty of being that nosy neighbor and researching who owns what.

Today, Trulia launched their luxury real estate blog Luxe Living. They’re focusing on multi-million dollar properties; detailing the celebrity that owns it along with more info on why they’re so successful and famous.

I like the simple, yet modern look they designed along with the social integration. The side-column of stats for each mansion homeowner is also a useful addition. I wanted to click on the blog heading but it seems that’s not as intuitive. Rather, they’re focusing on showcasing pictures by forcing the reader to click a link underneath each blog text. I also have an issue with the light grey text color they chose; it almost makes me squint. I’m sure a few of these nitpicks will change soon.

If I sold one of those showcase properties I could take the year off, but that’s just me.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1083-trulia-launches-celeb-real-estate-blog/feed/0Free Long Term Follow Up Programhttp://www.techforagents.com/1060-free-long-term-follow-program/
http://www.techforagents.com/1060-free-long-term-follow-program/#respondFri, 05 Aug 2011 00:57:17 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1060Today, I’d like to share a long term action plan that I would apply to all my past clients and anyone I personally felt I built a solid relationship with. […]

]]>Today, I’d like to share a long term action plan that I would apply to all my past clients and anyone I personally felt I built a solid relationship with. Most long term action plans are very basic; send an email or a monthly newsletter and forget about it.

This plan, however, is built to cultivate a strong relationship with your client and continually remind them that you value their referrals.

Planning

12 Newsletters (the 15th of every month)

4 Phone Calls

4 Notecards

4 Letters

6 Emails

2 Holiday Cards (New Years and 4th of July)

1 Birthday Card (a week before their birthday)

33 “Touches” Total

Keller Williams Realty describes any time you make contact a “touch” and the name sort of stuck to me. The ideal touches per year should be around 30-33. 12 might do it, but then again, it might not.

The Action Plan Details

The plan kicks in the day you apply it to a particular contact. It’s best way to do this is by using a database like Top Producer or Act! where you have the ability to create a template in the system and apply it over and over again. Attempting to do this manually will probably drive you insane, so I always coached agents that a solid database was a wise investment.

Day 10 – Letter

Day 25 – Email

Day 40 – Notecard

Day 70 – Call

Day 85 – Email

Day 100 – Letter

Day 130 – Notecard

Day 145 – Email

Day 160 – Call

Day 190 – Letter

Day 205 – Email

Day 220 – Notecard

Day 250 – Call

Day 265 – Email

Day 280 – Letter

Day 310 – Notecard

Day 325 – Email

Day 340 – Call

Remember: In addition to the above we will also send a holiday card on July 1st for the 4th of July, and a card around December 25th for the new year. We will also send a birthday card a week before their birthday. These three additional touches with the above is 33 touches total.

A Great Free Newsletter

Old Republic Home Warranty has a very nice monthly newsletter that they published that I used. I’ve been told that most home warranty companies will offer a free newsletter for you to use that includes their co-marketing, so pick your favorite and send it monthly on the 15th.

Phone Call Scripts

You don’t want to call your past client and say the same cheesy line every time. The key is to call with something to offer. Here are a few of my favorites:

Hi, is [name] available? Hi! How is the family doing? (listen, reply, then move on)

I just wanted to give you a ring and let you know that a few homes have sold in your area and I think home values are going up. Do you want me to send you a free quick analysis?

Great! Well remember that I’m here in case you meet anyone looking to buy or sell a home. Please never hesitate to give me a call. Have a great one!

Hi, [name] How are things with you and [spouse or pet]? (listen, reply, then move on)

I just wanted to let you know that I have a 10% off coupon to Lowe’s and I thought about you guys. Do you think you’d use it?

Great! I’ll drop it by this week/email it to you/throw it in the mail. Remember, if you meet anyone looking to buy or sell please think of me! Talk to you soon.

Remember that the key is to offer an item of value. Coupons, updated market reports, and interest rate updates are great ways to increase your value proposition to your past clients. Calling asking for a referral works too, but you can really solidify an advocate if the person on the other end benefits too.

Example Notecards

I loved sending out generic “thinking of you” cards to my past clients. I wasn’t lying; their named popped up in my todo list for the day and I was thinking of them! I would send a note via a simple thinking-of-you card available at any office supply:

Hi [name]! I just wanted to let you now that you and [spouse or pet] crossed my mind today and I thought I’d send you a quick note to let you know I was thinking of you guys! I hope all is well, and if you ever need anything, please never hesitate to email or call. I hope you have a great day!

After a closing, I would send a note to congratulate them on the closing to let them know I wasn’t going anywhere.

Hi [name]. I just wanted to send you a quick note to say congratulations once again on the new home. Buying a home is so exciting and I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to share that experience with you. I hope you have a wonderful week!

Example Emails

Emails are a bit more tricky. I never preferred to send a “canned” email to a past client that was generic in nature. Rather, I would send them a quick one or two sentence email manually and ask a question.

Hey [name],
How are thing coming along with the home? I’m sure the move was stressful, but I hope you’re settled in by now!

You can also mention something you might have missed. I especially liked getting their children’s birthday on file:

Hi [name],
I just noticed that I don’t have your daughter’s birthday in my calendar – would you mind sending that over? It’s important for me to keep track of those special days. Thanks!

Build Advocates

I always felt that staying in touch was just as important as closing a deal. I met too many agents who closed on a home, only to forget to follow up with their client. Sure; a referral may still come in here and there but imagine how things would of turned out if you were a more proactive agent!

I hope this plan helps your real estate business like it did mine. Once you set the plan in motion using the CRM of your choice, you’ll discover that your business almost becomes fully automated as you make the first steps towards becoming a mega-referral agent.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1060-free-long-term-follow-program/feed/05 Great Real Estate WordPress Themeshttp://www.techforagents.com/1047-5-great-real-estate-wordpress-themes/
http://www.techforagents.com/1047-5-great-real-estate-wordpress-themes/#commentsWed, 03 Aug 2011 14:00:04 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1047WordPress is a great tool to quickly get a website up and going for your real estate business, but equally as important is the theme you eventually choose. There are […]

]]>WordPress is a great tool to quickly get a website up and going for your real estate business, but equally as important is the theme you eventually choose. There are a few free themes available, but the following are affordable, hand-selected themes that will make your new blog shine beautifully.

Openhouse Real Estate

This theme includes a powerful real estate search, built in support for the dsIDXPress plugin (a plugin that enables you to put indexable property listing on your blog), agent support, open house times, an even a super-easy to use color scheme changer. You have to give this one a look.

WP Pro Real Estate

This real estate theme is also a hot item for it’s simplicity and bold color scheme. It features dynamic image resizing, searching properly listings, and a custom admin panel to take the thinking out of adding blog posts and properly listings to your new real estate site.

The Real Estate Theme

This is a very simple theme that comes in a variety of colors and useful features such as automatic image resizing and custom property statuses. The ready-to-use contact form is useful for sprinkling call-to-actions around property listings on your site, and the home page features your listings very prominently for your clients to see.

Elegant Real Estate

You might be looking for something a little more elegant with bold colors and screams “luxury”. The elegant real estate theme is perfect for you. It’s use of fonts to add style and class to your listings and blog posts can improve the first impression you get on the web. If you always wanted to break into luxury real estate, choosing this theme is certainly a step in the right direction.

Quick Start Real Estate

You can’t go wrong by choosing red, white, and blue as your theme colors. This theme features an advanced property search function, ready-to-embed contact form plugin, and an advanced administration panel that takes the thinking out of blogging.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1047-5-great-real-estate-wordpress-themes/feed/2Zillow IPO and Upcoming Market Conditionshttp://www.techforagents.com/1027-zillow-ipo-upcoming-market-conditions/
http://www.techforagents.com/1027-zillow-ipo-upcoming-market-conditions/#respondTue, 02 Aug 2011 15:56:13 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1027If you are in real estate and haven’t heard of Zillow, it’s time to make that crawl out from underneath the proverbial rock. Zillow is a popular real estate technology […]

]]>If you are in real estate and haven’t heard of Zillow, it’s time to make that crawl out from underneath the proverbial rock. Zillow is a popular real estate technology website that lets users find the value of over 100 million homes. It attracts those that are serious about finding a new home as well as those curious about the values of homes in their area. As most of us know, it can be an important advertising venue for real estate agents. The real question: During the current economic climate, what does Zillow’s recent IPO say anything about the market?

Zillow gained popularity during the housing boom, as users relied on their real estate technology to monitor home values. However, recent increases in usage of their site may indicate more interest in real estate from homeowners as well as real estate investors. This could be a positive sign for the real estate market, which has languished in recent years. The site provides home values and rent estimates for nearly 100 million homes in the United States.

A Few Zillow IPO Figures

On July 20, Zillow, Inc. completed their initial public offering. They issued 3.9 million shares, including an additional 519,000 shares sold to the company’s underwriters, raising $69.2 million. The Zillow IPO price was listed at $20 per share, but the price quickly soared to $60 before ending the day at $35.77. The quick rise in their share price is an indication that their shares were in demand by investors.

The success of the Zillow IPO and other recent IPOs of tech stocks has reminded investors of the internet bubble of the late 90s. Zillow has yet to turn a profit, but has an ever-growing user base. Homeowners and investors rely on Zillow’s website to track home values. The company had 22 million unique visitors in May; double that of a year ago. The site also contains mortgage data, real estate listings, and other services.

Profits and Losses

The company lost nearly $6.8 million in 2010 and $826,000 in the first quarter, but is expected to turn a profit later this year. First quarter sales increased $11.3 million, up from $5.3 million in the first quarter of 2009.

Despite recent losses, the company is now cash flow positive. With positive cash flow, a high share price and a new cash horde of $69.2 million, they have the ability to purchase other real estate related companies with a combination of cash or stock. They could also use this cash for additional research and development to drive innovation to further their real estate technology.

In any case, their new status as a public company and the cash that they raised will only help strengthen and expand Zillow’s position in the real estate marketplace.

Leveraging their Existing User Base

Zillow hopes to leverage their growing user base into more revenue opportunities. Zillow makes most of their money from the ads they display for local real estate agents, brokers, mortgage lenders and other real estate related customers. Revenue totaled $30.5 million in 2010 and $11.3 million in the first quarter of 2011.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1027-zillow-ipo-upcoming-market-conditions/feed/0Apple iCloud.com Enters Betahttp://www.techforagents.com/1018-apple-icloud-com-enters-beta/
http://www.techforagents.com/1018-apple-icloud-com-enters-beta/#respondTue, 02 Aug 2011 13:32:21 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=1018I’m really excited about Apple’s new free iCloud service. It’s supposed to be released at the same time as iOS 5 for Apple’s mobile devices, so we could really see […]

]]>I’m really excited about Apple’s new free iCloud service. It’s supposed to be released at the same time as iOS 5 for Apple’s mobile devices, so we could really see a full public launch within a couple of months.

It also looks as if Apple is going with alerts/error boxes that resemble mobile devices, which goes in line with OSX Lion’s attempt to bring iOS 5 and OSX closer together it terms of looks and how things work.

Developers are going to begin hacking away at their applications and incorporate the features that iCloud brings to the table. The free plan will include 5gb of online file storage (like Dropbox), and users will also be able to pay additional amounts for additional storage space. Other features, like contact syncing, will be absolutely free.

]]>The folks over at SixRevisions.com have posted a contest for a free 1-year membership to MailerLite (worth $99). This is a tool that helps you send great looking email marketing to your past and current clients, and features an easy to use drag-and-drop content editor to make creating a newsletter a snap.

Participating in the content is pretty simple – you just answer a very basic question.

If you’re into free stuff (aren’t we all?!), head over to SixRevisions.com and read more details on the content and leave a comment for your chance to win. If you happen to win, let me know and I’ll announce it here!

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/1009-revisions-giving-10-subscriptions-mailerlite/feed/0Skype Launched for iPad … Not! [Updated]http://www.techforagents.com/991-skype-launched-ipad-not/
http://www.techforagents.com/991-skype-launched-ipad-not/#respondTue, 02 Aug 2011 12:57:24 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=991In New Zealand, people were seeing this new release of Skype for the iPad pop up in the Apple app store. It features a nifty interface with video calling, so […]

]]>In New Zealand, people were seeing this new release of Skype for the iPad pop up in the Apple app store. It features a nifty interface with video calling, so it will be limited only to the latest iPad generation with cameras.

Unfortunately, it disappeared just as quickly as it appeared. Skype has released a statement saying that it was released too early and that the whole thing was a mistake. What are they waiting for?

I personally use Skype to chat with clients and keep my iPad on a dock next to my monitor. Having a native Skype application next to me would be very useful, especially since you can send and receive actual phone calls from it (and have your own Skype-In phone number).

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/991-skype-launched-ipad-not/feed/0HootSuite – Get the Most out of your Twitter Accounthttp://www.techforagents.com/849-hootsuite-get-the-most-out-of-your-twitter-account/
http://www.techforagents.com/849-hootsuite-get-the-most-out-of-your-twitter-account/#respondMon, 01 Aug 2011 21:31:35 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=849HootSuite is a powerful tool that makes managing one or many Twitter accounts a breeze. With a fully customizable web interface, you are sure you to get the most out of Twitter using HootSuite.

]]>I recently signed up for a new Twitter client site, HootSuite, in hopes of making my Twitter management a little easier. Having tried TweetDeck in the past with mixed results, I was hesitant going in. However, I have found HootSuite to be a very handy tool for getting the most out of Twitter.

Web interface – You can log in from any computer that has web access. All of your tabs and accounts will be setup and ready to go. Unlike Twitter applications that require an installation and can only be accessed from that PC.

I have only been setup for a few weeks; however this is my new Twitter tool of choice! There is so much power available and it is a great way to manage one or many Twitter accounts. There are still a lot of things I need to learn about the product but it will definitely help me achieve some of my goals on Twitter. If you have a few minutes, check out HootSuite.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/849-hootsuite-get-the-most-out-of-your-twitter-account/feed/0Trulia Adds Social Recommendation Toolhttp://www.techforagents.com/876-trulia-adds-social-recommendation-tool/
http://www.techforagents.com/876-trulia-adds-social-recommendation-tool/#respondFri, 29 Jul 2011 14:59:45 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=876Real estate agents generally have two main ways of obtaining new clients: client referral/word-of-mouth or through marketing (this includes cold calling). I’m sure we all can agree that a word-of-mouth […]

]]>Real estate agents generally have two main ways of obtaining new clients: client referral/word-of-mouth or through marketing (this includes cold calling). I’m sure we all can agree that a word-of-mouth referral from a past client is a much higher quality lead than a traditional cold call.

Trulia has taken steps to help agents use this to their advantage. When a new user signs up to look for properties, they have the option to connect their Facebook account. Trulia then scans their friends list to find other users at Trulia. If any of your friends has recommended an agent at Trulia, then this will reflect when searching for one yourself. Pretty nifty, eh?

I think this feature is definitely a step in the right direction. This is basically like picking up the phone and asking a friend, “Do you know of a good real estate agent?”. Social sites like Facebook and Twitter are really adding a new dynamic towards lead generation that all real estate agents should consider when evaluating their marketing strategy.

Read more about this along with a possible IPO for Trulia over at Techcrunch.com.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/876-trulia-adds-social-recommendation-tool/feed/0Carolyn Capalbohttp://www.techforagents.com/870-carolyn-capalbo/
http://www.techforagents.com/870-carolyn-capalbo/#respondWed, 16 Jun 2010 01:34:56 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=870A friend of the blog, Carolyn Capalbo, has been having a rough time recently with a recent confusion involving her name. She wanted us to share the details. One Carolyn […]

]]>A friend of the blog, Carolyn Capalbo, has been having a rough time recently with a recent confusion involving her name. She wanted us to share the details.

One Carolyn Capalbo is a realtor in Virginia and another is related to the scandal regarding governor Eliot Spitzer. Normally, this wouldn’t be that big of a deal but in this case, when you search for Carolyn because of her real estate business in Google you’ll run into a bunch of gossip magazines talking about the scandal.

Is any publicity really good publicity? What would you do if your name was confused with another who you really didn’t want to associate yourself with?

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/870-carolyn-capalbo/feed/0Does RPR (Realtors Property Resource) = The Death of the MLS?http://www.techforagents.com/860-does-rpr-realtors-property-resource-the-death-of-the-mls/
http://www.techforagents.com/860-does-rpr-realtors-property-resource-the-death-of-the-mls/#commentsThu, 19 Nov 2009 00:04:06 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=860So NAR released more information on RPR this week. So what is RPR? The initials stand for the Realtors Property Resource, a somewhat unassuming name. I assume the name was […]

]]>So NAR released more information on RPR this week. So what is RPR? The initials stand for the Realtors Property Resource, a somewhat unassuming name. I assume the name was chosen intentionally to sound benign.

But the “Realtors Property Resource” is in fact a national realtor facing MLS. To make matters more interesting its 100% free for realtors. They are going to make money be selling the average sales data to other institutions like wall street to allow them to make better financial decision.

MLS boards across the country are understandably nervous. Realtors typically pay $1000 or more a year to access a local mls system. And some realtors are unhappy with handing mls fees ever year to their board. There has been no alternative for realtors in past, either join the local mls and pay whatever fees they decide to charge or simply find a new profession.

So let’s break down a comparison between RPR and the local MLS:

Local MLS
Cost: $1,000+ a year
Scope: Only homes in your region
Budget for Tools: VariesRPR
Cost: Free
Scope: National Access
Budget for Tools: Greater than any local MLS

So now with RPR not only do they finally have an alternative, buts it’s free, and realtors can not simply search for homes in their city they can search for properties anywhere in the United States, and because of a larger budget could actually have more functionality that what most realtors are used to.

So what does this mean? Basically MLS’s are going to lose revenue. And judging from what I have read they are somewhat nervous. They have been going for several years with basically no competition. Now not only do they have competition but it’s from a competitor with more development money and a free product.

So what are there options? They could try and fight the change but it would be difficult and they will probably lose in the end. If realtors in city x are still paying 1000+ a year to their board and a neighboring city is getting free access through the RPR (and the RPR is a decent system and early reports are that it is) you can imagine the kind of revolt you are going to see.

Probably a smarter move is to retool and figure out how a board can operate without control of the MLS and the corresponding mls fees.

But it’s going to be a difficult transition. The MLS boards are used to being able to say it’s our way or the highway. That era has just come to an end.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/860-does-rpr-realtors-property-resource-the-death-of-the-mls/feed/5Google Voice: Great for Real Estate Agents on the Gohttp://www.techforagents.com/845-google-voice-great-for-real-estate-agents-on-the-go/
http://www.techforagents.com/845-google-voice-great-for-real-estate-agents-on-the-go/#commentsThu, 20 Aug 2009 18:00:03 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=845I signed up for a Google Voice invite a couple of months ago and received my invitation after waiting 2-3 weeks. Google Voice is pretty awesome, in theory – like […]

]]>I signed up for a Google Voice invite a couple of months ago and received my invitation after waiting 2-3 weeks. Google Voice is pretty awesome, in theory – like LOR, it’s “one number to rule them all.” You give out one phone number and then pick which phones you want it to ring – office, mobile, home, etc… They also allow you to choose your new number. So, after spending 3-4 hours (literally) choosing my number, I was ready to rock.

But…I don’t want to change my phone number.

The one flaw in Google Voice is that you can’t yet port a number in. So, if you’re like me and have had your current mobile number for 7+ years, you probably don’t want to go through the hassle of telling everyone that it’s changed. If you do go through the hassle of telling everyone it’s changed, then you’re going to have 2+ voice mailboxes to check until the late adapters finally remember to call your new number.

I started looking around online and found a way to “test drive” Google Voice until they allow me to port in my mobile number. If you’d like to use GV for voicemail, then take the following steps (thanks to Nokia blog for the info):

Go to your phone settings (this will be a little different for everyone) and change “if busy, unanswered, and not available” to forward to your Google Voice number.

Since your GV settings are “do not disturb” GV will automatically pick up as soon as the call is forwarded.

So what does this do for you? Basically, you get the pay features of Youmail.com for free. Since you’re now using Google, storage won’t be an issue. Also, GV has free transcription. So, if you’re using a smart phone, you can preview someone’s message to you via email before listening to it on your computer, phone, or android app. This is very handy if you’re out with clients, can’t take a call, but want to see if it’s important.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/845-google-voice-great-for-real-estate-agents-on-the-go/feed/14Advertise Your Rental Listings with RentShout.comhttp://www.techforagents.com/839-advertise-your-rental-listings-with-rentshout-com/
http://www.techforagents.com/839-advertise-your-rental-listings-with-rentshout-com/#commentsSat, 08 Aug 2009 03:01:31 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=839Today, Mashable had an announcement of a neat site called Rentshout.com that helps with syndicating your rental listings to every site you could imagine. Most of the normal ones are […]

]]>Today, Mashable had an announcement of a neat site called Rentshout.com that helps with syndicating your rental listings to every site you could imagine.

Most of the normal ones are there; Craiglist, Google Base, and Yahoo Real estate. However, there are plenty others that your listings are sent to that increase exposure for your rental.

RentShout combines social media distribution of housing and rental listings with speed, simplicity, and analytics. The core of RentShout is to get your listing onto dozens of directories and websites – including CraigsList – but it comes with features such as video syndication and Click-To-Call which make it stand out as a way to distribute your listings. – Mashable

There is a cost associated with this though. To advertise on more than 60 sites you’re going to pay $30, or you can do them in bulk with 5 listings at a time for $90.

Spending money to advertise rental listings is a bit tough for real estate agents. The commissions for rental listings is much lower than traditional real estate sales, yet you’re still spending the same amount of time putting the house on the market, accepting applications, showcasing the property via tours, and possibly even open houses.

More money spent on advertising only reduces the already low commissions you’ll earn on low priced rentals, but could be a perfect solution for luxury rentals in your city.

Rentshout.com also looks to be a great too for homeowners looking to rent their home out themselves. If an owner can put up with the stress of doing so, then by all means give it a shot!

Agents: Have you sold rental listings before, and what did you use to advertise them?

]]>I feel that one day in the future, real estate agents won’t be caught dead without some sort of tablet PC instead of 8 lbs of real estate contracts and addenda. Paper is so 20th century; let’s catch up with the times!

It’s no wonder why I’m excited at the possibility of Apple presenting a tablet device to the market.

Why Now?

I know there have been plenty of tablet PCs in the past on the market. There were some offered by HP, Lenovo, Toshiba; they were all fine and dandy. However, Apple’s products are so well done that one can’t help but be excited about them entering this market. Current tablet PCs are simply too bulky, too expensive, and feel cheap.

Apple won’t design a product unless it’s sleek, sexy, and built to perfection. If they’re going to step into the tablet PC market, you can bet your next commission check that it will be done well. Think of it as a bigger iPhone, except big enough to use comfortably as a multimedia device.

Real estate agents should be excited. This sleek device (mockup pictured above by Edwin Tofslie) would be easy to keep in a suitcase, carrying bag, and while touring homes. Your entire listing presentation could be held on it. Your clients will be impressed at how tech savvy you are, and how this plays a role in the emerging real estate market where technology is becoming much more prevalent.

This is of course purely speculation. No one has actually confirmed that Apple is working on a product like this, but boy are there rumors galore. Take this case where an analyst is said to have actually put his hands on one whose identify is held secret.

The “veteran analyst”, whom Barron’s does not name, claims to have seen a prototype of the tablet. Commenting on the device’s playback of hi-def video, the analyst is quoted as saying: “It’s better than the average movie experience, when you hold this thing in your hands”.

The analyst adds that other device manufacturers are holding off on similar products until they see the Apple machine: “It’s close enough now to a final design that in Asia, there’s no other product in the waiting room or in the bullpen”. Frustratingly, he gives no details on the device’s spec. – Mashable

Most rumors put the device to hit the market at $699 or $799; well below the entry level tablet PCs currently on the market. For real estate agents, I think this is extremely affordable. In a few months time I think you could easily recoup at least half of your investment by the sheer amount of printing you don’t have to do.

There’s a few features that real estate agents would need to see in order for it to be prefect for a real estate business.

Integrated wireless connections – Needs to be able to connect to a wireless network, and also utilize a 3G connection (or better) built in. No annoying PCM cards please!

Pen accessory – Please let there be a pen! This is the key ingredient. As well, it would be nice if it were housed within the device itself.

Bright screen – Apple’s LED backlit screens are gorgeous, and I’d like to see this feature brought to this device as well. It’s absolutely essential in days where bright sunlight washes out the screen and you literally have to hide in a closet to see it legibly.

Long battery life – Needs to last at least 3 hours on non-stop usage. A typical showing tour for me lasts around 3 hours, so we’ll need to make sure the device can have a good charge for the entire time. I say it only need 3 hours non-stop because I’m assuming putting it in standby while I’m driving saves a bit of juice.

What do you think? Do you think a tablet by Apple could be a great device for real estate agents? I’m obviously excited about it, but I’m a fan of Apple products. What about all the PC folks out there?

]]>You might have heard about the latest scare in Apple’s world. A hack was revealed that could literally hijack your iPhone and take it over. The attacker could turn your phone off, call anyone, and open apps (pretty much take it completely over) without you knowing.

All with a text message that could be as simple as a square looking character.

Apple was on the ball and released an update today before anyone really expected it. Make sure you plug in you iPhone and update to the latest version to make sure you’re not haunted and need an exorcism to rid your iPhone of poltergeists.

]]>I’m a huge fan of dual-monitors. In the real estate business, agents are routinely having to alt-tab between contracts, listing database, email. We’ll literally have about 5-10 windows open at a time in the peak of our productivity hour (minutes for some).

What I’m even a bigger fan of are dual-monitors that are huge; 27 inches huge. Could you imagine picking up the latest from HP; two side by side 27 inch LCD monitors sporting a 5 ms response time (lower the better) and a 30,000:1 contrast ratio? You’ll “wow” other real estate agents for sure, but your clients will never see you submerged in your LCD heaven.

It’s only a matter of time before we’re fully surrounded by monitors performing virtual tours and web conferences with clients. Thanks to Engadget for the tip today.

]]>If you’ve been in the real estate industry (any sales industry actually) more then a few days, you’ve probably amassed a large amount of names, email addresses and phone numbers.

You’ve probably also began to think “Hmm; what am I going to do with all this information?”. You wouldn’t be the last to think that nor are you the first. When I first started my real estate career I asked myself this very question. As my business grew and I obtained more and more business cards, it was almost overwhelming.

I realized I needed a way to organize the information I was obtaining and once I began using a Contact Management System (CMS) I no longer dreaded obtaining business cards. In fact I thrive on it every day.

When anyone begins to acquire a fair amount of contacts, their first inclination may be to run out and purchase a business card holder. While this is not a terribly bad idea, it is in essence the first contact management system many of us use.

Unfortunately as our businesses grow we obtain more and more contacts, eventually that business card holder fills up and we have to purchase another. So much for keeping business cards in folder! Not only is it tedious and difficult to find anything, but it takes up space and you need to purchase more over time.

So, what then is the solution?

Well there are many solutions to this problem. You could use a free email client such as MS-Outlook or Thunderbird. It’s easy to enter the information and you can access it from your computer at any time; even search through your contacts to find someone in a few seconds. This is a fine solution for simply managing your contacts.

Hmm, but wait… What if you want to send out holiday greetings to all the contacts you’ve made? Well you could manually create a list in your email program and send them out manually. Ouch; too time consuming and if you have a lot of contacts and attempt to send emails to everyone at once, you could very possibly get flagged as a spammer by your ISP (Internet Service Provider).

What you really need is a way to store contact information by which you can easily locate a contact, be able to send emails or flyers or other information automatically (without risking your online access) and be able to track information about that client.

That’s where a full functioning CMS comes in very handy. With today’s technology, there are so many options when looking for a CMS. From free email clients, to full featured online contact management software such as Top Producer.

I’ve even heard of people uploading their entire database to Social Networking sites such as Facebook. Now, uploading all my contacts to a Social Network site is my least favorite and perhaps one of the worst ideas I’ve heard. After all, do you really want to share all your contacts with everyone else on a Social Networking site? I imagine some of your contacts may get quite annoyed when they start receiving messages from people they don’t know.

Either way, all are interesting options, but when it comes down to making a choice how do you know which is best for you?

That really depends on your needs doesn’t it? And that is where you have to start.

You must be able to identify how you will use the contact management system, your level of comfort with technology, your budget and whether or not there is a significant learning curve to using it effectively. Some CMS’ are quite complicated to use while others are fairly simple.

I personally prefer keeping it simple. I have enough to do with my daily tasks rather then having to take time out of my schedule to figure out how to setup a contact, send an email, attach a flyer or file etc. I just want to enter the information, push a button and be done with it.

Here then are the basic features most people need when shopping for a contact management system:

An address book

The ability to send emails both automatically (we call them drip campaigns in the real estate industry) and manually

The ability to notate or make notes about each contact

Security

Once you find a system that has these features the rest is easy. If you have a budget where you can spend $30 or more dollars per month you can purchase a license from one of many 3rd party online software companies.

The point is there is no one size fits all CMS. What works for one, may not necessarily work for another. Try to think ahead and decide how you will use your CMS before purchasing. When ever possible find one that you can try out for a few weeks before purchasing and judge whether it meets your needs, budget and is easy enough for you to manage.

Jennifer Mackay is a Keller Williams real estate agent located in Panama City, Florida. Her Panama City real estate team provides guidance and services for buyers, sellers and investors in all aspects of the real estate market in Panama City, Florida. For additional information visit her at Florida Real Estate | Panama City.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/798-contact-management-systems/feed/1Penetrate Every Real Estate Market on Earthhttp://www.techforagents.com/790-penetrate-every-real-estate-market-on-earth/
http://www.techforagents.com/790-penetrate-every-real-estate-market-on-earth/#commentsWed, 29 Jul 2009 14:06:36 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=790In real estate, agents and brokers are constantly looking to get the most bang out of their advertising buck. The name of the game is to get your message in […]

]]>In real estate, agents and brokers are constantly looking to get the most bang out of their advertising buck. The name of the game is to get your message in front of as many eyeballs as possible. Day after day real estate webmasters strive to break into another market that will add a new segment of users.

What if it were possible penetrate every market on earth? I’m not talking about Facebook, YouTube or Twitter. I am referring to a new advertising medium that has more page views than Google itself . . . the moon.

An inventor named David Kent Jones has plans to use lunar robots to turn the surface of the moon into a giant billboard. The idea is to use the robots to plow moon dust into furrows that will create shadows to form large advertising messages. The moon message has the potential to be seen by twelve billion eyeballs for several days (nights) each month.

The plan will be put into action by a Salt Lake City technology company called Moon Publicity. The company justifies the seemingly monetary driven plan by claiming to have a motive to inspire more space travel. MP admits it will be hard for people to swallow at first but insists that space travel is important due to “the inevitable extinction of the human species.”

The patent pending shaping technology will be available for 44 regions of the visible the moon. The exclusively transferable licensing was put out to bid last week on the anniversary of man’s first walk on the moon. Bidding starts at $46,000 and supposedly will run for three months with the winner being announced in the beginning of November.

While I believe space travel is one of the more interesting topics being discussed today, I think in this respect, they should leave the moon alone and refocus their attention back here on earth. Not to say we shouldn’t do more in the way of space exploration, it seems whoring out the moon for monetary gain is just plain stupid.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/790-penetrate-every-real-estate-market-on-earth/feed/1Converting Internet Leads: It’s About Building Relationshipshttp://www.techforagents.com/779-converting-internet-leads-its-about-building-relationships/
http://www.techforagents.com/779-converting-internet-leads-its-about-building-relationships/#commentsThu, 23 Jul 2009 03:01:04 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=779Every real estate agent should have a website. Most agents use their site to merely establish an online presence deemed essential by their peers, coaches, and nearly anyone with a […]

]]>Every real estate agent should have a website. Most agents use their site to merely establish an online presence deemed essential by their peers, coaches, and nearly anyone with a pulse. An elite few use their sites to generate leads online. And they’re good at it.

Generating a substantial portion of leads online is one thing, but what good is all those leads if you don’t have the skills to convert them? Online leads are a different animal; there isn’t normally a fast turn-around time on them. Conversely, you’ll find that it’s quite common for an internet lead to be at least six months away from buying a home in your city.

Intimidating? You’ll have to muster more keystrokes than you can imagine. Emails galore will be flying out of your box o’ lights into the vast void known as the internet. It’s the life of an internet lead converter, and if you want to play in this ball game, you have to get used to it.

Converting an internet lead is about building a relationship with the person on the other end. You’ll do this by exchanging emails, staying into curiousity, and asking for key milestones like their next trip to your city or a timeframe for their move. Pushing for a quick sale won’t be your ticket. It may in fact scare them away.

Businesses naturally want short-term leads, because they feel a need for immediate results. In the search for the quick close, however, some of the most promising leads can get lost.

This is unfortunate, since prospects who don’t respond immediately, or respond that they aren’t interested, often represent the largest base of potential new customers. In fact, companies that focus strategically on long-term opportunities realize by far the highest lead conversion rates. – Inside CRM

You’re not the only one that has to make the change. Anyone who generates leads online has to work on cultivating relationships; it’s part of the game. If you want to achieve the best results for your time spent generating the mass amount of leads you perspire to create, you have to spend quality time perfecting your long term, relationship building skills through email and phone alone.

Be sure to email your leads moving within 6 months at least once every two weeks. Even if you don’t have much to say, email to say hello, and offer some help in searching for their perfect property. When it gets within 3 months, up the frequency to once a week.

For those leads that are more than 6 months away, you should email once every few weeks and at bare minimum once a month. Closer to their time frame for moving, bump up the frequency to once very two weeks so you don’t miss their “getting started” deadline.

Aha: The emails you send them of homes that fit their criteria qualify as a touch as well, so your first conversation with them should aim at getting their criteria for their perfect home.

Always remember that real estate is all about the relationships you build with those you meet on a daily basis. Approach a lead with a push for a quick sale, and they’ll smell the pesky salesmen attitude from a mile away.

Focus on building long-term, win/win relationships, and you’ll have a client for life.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/779-converting-internet-leads-its-about-building-relationships/feed/4Google Announces Google Chrome Operating Systemhttp://www.techforagents.com/771-google-announces-google-chrome-operating-system/
http://www.techforagents.com/771-google-announces-google-chrome-operating-system/#commentsWed, 08 Jul 2009 19:21:26 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=771You have a few choices when it comes to your operating system that comes with that shiny new computer of yours. If you bought a PC, you’ll be running Microsoft […]

]]>You have a few choices when it comes to your operating system that comes with that shiny new computer of yours. If you bought a PC, you’ll be running Microsoft Windows. Macs enjoy the OSX platform, and a few computers here and there run with versions of Linux.

New to the field is an operating system begin pioneering by the geniuses at Google, called the Google Chrome OS. You may know about Google Chrome; it’s their browser set to compete with the likes if Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari.

Google Chrome OS is aimed for those who spend a majority of their time online (don’t we all?). Here’s a quote from their blog post that goes into more detail:

Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems.

We can assume a couple things from this quote:

There could be a possibility of an instant-on operating system. No more booting wait times.

While the Android operating system is meant for mobile phones and netbooks, it looks like Google Chrome OS will be more for desktops and laptops.

I can definitely appreciate the fact that this OS will be open source. Should we assume free? If you look at the history of all the other Google products, I think that can be a safe assumption. I’m sure the general public can appreciate a free operating system.

Since this is being built by Google, I’m expecting to see Adsense play a role in this. Will it be built into the operating system itself? Will the cost to deploy it to the world be subsidized by advertisements built into the operating system?

You won’t be hearing much about it this year, but it’s set to make it’s lovely debut in 2010. I definitely expect to see versions of the OS hitting the open source community so you may catch wind of how it works much sooner than that.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/771-google-announces-google-chrome-operating-system/feed/3Facebook Users Getting Olderhttp://www.techforagents.com/764-facebook-users-getting-older/
http://www.techforagents.com/764-facebook-users-getting-older/#commentsTue, 07 Jul 2009 19:07:49 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=764One of the ways a real estate agent can step foot into the online lead generation business is to begin experimenting with social networking. Just like a traditional real estate […]

]]>One of the ways a real estate agent can step foot into the online lead generation business is to begin experimenting with social networking. Just like a traditional real estate business, often times your first leads comes from those you know. Networking online with your friends and family is another way to tap into those leads you’ve been neglecting.

Facebook is one, if not the most popular online social networking site today. You’ll find friends and family, co-workers and bosses, neighbors and future clients all sharing their thoughts and comments on updates listed publicly for everyone to see.

Initially, most real estate agents thought Facebook was a place for kids to fool around with. Similar to MySpace, Facebook was a site that could be a pothole of wasted time with no real results; there’s only a bunch of kids there anyway, right?

Not so fast. A recent study by iStrategyLabs shows that Facebook’s users are on average older, and this trend is progressing at a rapid pace. Thanks to Mashable who pointed this out today, and also had this to say:

As you can see in the chart below, the overall number of users between 18 and 24 years of age has grown only 4.8% between the fourth of January and the fourth of July of 2009. In comparison, the number of users aged 25 – 34 has grown 60.8%; the number of users aged 35 to 54 has grown 190.2%, while the number of users older than 55 years has grown a tremendous 513.7%. – Mashable

Click on the link to Mashable in the quote to see the actual chart.

What this tells me is that there are more potential, high-quality leads at Facebook. In my eyes, a higher quality lead is one that may have purchased before, knows the process, and is more stable and ready to make decisions. You’ll see this among older individuals – which is exactly where the user base of Facebook is improving.

Now is a great time to create your account at Facebook and begin networking with those you already know online. You’ll be surprised how many people who are close to you are already sharing information with each other which keeps them closer connected. Get in the mix; stay in the loop!

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/764-facebook-users-getting-older/feed/1Windows 7 – First Impressionshttp://www.techforagents.com/754-windows-7-first-impressions/
http://www.techforagents.com/754-windows-7-first-impressions/#commentsMon, 15 Jun 2009 22:35:23 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=754If you are tired of Windows XP or do not want to bother with a Vista upgrade try Windows 7. It is a responsive, easy to use Operating System.

]]>I recently ordered and received a new Dell laptop for a family member. During the configuration process on Dell’s site I spent some time debating what Operating System to choose.

There were a number of different flavors of Vista available to choose from. Despite reading and hearing so many bad things about the operating System (OS), I decided on Vista Home Premium. This was the version that was included with the laptop. I figured Vista has aged a little and a majority of the issues would be fixed by now.

The laptop arrived within four days of placing the order and Vista lived up to all the negative hype. I spent two hours trying to install two applications just to have them tell me that I did not have Administrative rights on the computer. Firefox in particular would simply not install.

So I decided to verify that my user account was part of the Local Administrative Group. In Windows XP I could manage User and Groups Rights in Computer Management. I went through the process in Vista Home Premium to be told by the OS that this option was not available in the Home version of Vista.

That was my breaking point. I had given Vista a chance and between all the security prompts, update balloons, and lack of privileges I decided it was time for a new OS. The laptop was 64 bit, which meant I would need to purchase a 64 bit license for XP. Or I could upgrade to Vista Ultimate. Neither of these options really appealed to me because I didn’t want to spend more money on something that should have been included with the laptop purchase.

That is when I remembered reading an article about the new Release Candidate of Windows 7 (W7). Release candidate is the final stage of software testing for an application. It is what the final application look and feel will like, unless there are major bugs discovered.

The download was very easy. After entering my Windows Live information, I was provided with a license key and download location. A couple of quick notes:

The download is over 3GB so the download will take a while

DVD +R is the preferred media. The install would give copying errors when using DVD-R media

I choose to do clean install and erase the hard drive instead of upgrading. One nice thing about Dell is they give you the restore partition. This was a great back out plan for me if Windows 7 was no good.

After about 45 minutes of installing I was up and running. Surprisingly all of my drivers were installed automatically and everything worked. The number of pop-ups and prompts decreased dramatically and the OS is very responsive.

The last hurdle was finding compatible anti-virus. I found a good article on the Windows 7 Team Blog about the different beta options available for W7. I choose Kaspersky because that is what I run on all my computers. The install is quick and easy and the user interface is very straight forward.

After a slow start with Vista Home Premium, I now have a very fast and responsive laptop without a lot of the extra fluff. There are a lot of cool features as well, like the improved Side Doc or mouse over minimized applications for a better quick view. If you are tired of struggling with Vista or just looking for something new, I strongly suggest Windows 7. It’s easy to download and install, it’s fast, and until March 1, 2010 it’s free!

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/754-windows-7-first-impressions/feed/5Could Open Registrations Encourage Organic Linking?http://www.techforagents.com/750-could-open-registrations-encourage-organic-linking/
http://www.techforagents.com/750-could-open-registrations-encourage-organic-linking/#commentsThu, 28 May 2009 22:25:07 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=750Here’s a new light on the never ending debate of forcing registrations: Do you feel that open registrations encourages more organic linking to your site? Organic links are links that […]

]]>Here’s a new light on the never ending debate of forcing registrations: Do you feel that open registrations encourages more organic linking to your site? Organic links are links that you get back to your site which you did not actively pursue to create; they were created solely by the will of a random internet user.

The etiquette I’ve sort of self-discovered among the online community is that you never share a link to a site that forces you to register. You may get a few testy remarks for doing something like that. A better way to get links shared among internet users is to not force them to register, thus not violating the etiquette.

Could open registrations encourage organic linking? I believe the practice of only sharing links which do not require a registration is very common by today’s standards. Having open registrations could create more of an open environment on a real estate site, thus promoting users to actively link to your site when sharing information to others interested in the same area.

You’ll normally find this happening on message boards and social networking sites, where users (not agents) discuss different parts of town in your market (every major market has a message board like this, I promise) and even share listings with each other. If you lurk around for a bit, you might self discover that sharing a link of a site that forces registration is taboo.

So what do you think? Could open registrations encourage organic linking? Could those organic links help expand your SEO portfolio, therefore increasing your rankings in major search engines?

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/750-could-open-registrations-encourage-organic-linking/feed/7Latest TP8i Updates Aim to Increase Productivityhttp://www.techforagents.com/740-latest-tp8i-updates-aim-to-increase-productivity/
http://www.techforagents.com/740-latest-tp8i-updates-aim-to-increase-productivity/#respondThu, 21 May 2009 19:15:38 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=740After logging into your Top Producer 8i accounts today, you might have noticed some updates to your database. Contact records have had a much needed revision, client notes have been […]

]]>After logging into your Top Producer 8i accounts today, you might have noticed some updates to your database. Contact records have had a much needed revision, client notes have been improved, and the process for scheduling follow up activities has been streamlined.

I really like that the folks at Top Producer understand that their product needs revisions in this department. The faster you are able to use a database, the better. No one wants to sit and stare at a screen all day long and get nothing done.

We received this yesterday from our contact at Top Producer:

Faster Follow-up, More Consistent Marketing
Our new, enhanced Contact Record makes it easier to add a new appointment, look up specific contacts, and schedule follow-up for a later date.

Better Information At Your Fingertips
Your client notes are powerful tools for building relationships, allowing you to track client details, preferences and histories, and refer to them quickly when their phone call comes in. We’ve made it even easier to refer to past conversations.

Time Saving Tools
Your time is valuable. That’s why we’ve focused on enhancements that will save you time, such as new navigation, new search options, and auto-capitalization.

To get a full list of all the updates (it’s pretty extensive), head over to the Top Producer Campus.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/740-latest-tp8i-updates-aim-to-increase-productivity/feed/0The Registration Debate – Forced or Not?http://www.techforagents.com/724-the-registration-debate-forced-or-not/
http://www.techforagents.com/724-the-registration-debate-forced-or-not/#commentsWed, 20 May 2009 14:46:48 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=724This is something that’s been really bugging me lately. Have you ever had an issue you were dealing with, where the pros and cons of both sides were pretty much […]

]]>This is something that’s been really bugging me lately. Have you ever had an issue you were dealing with, where the pros and cons of both sides were pretty much equal? A “pick your poison” scenario?

This is how I feel with the debate between forcing registrations on a real estate website vs. not forcing registrations. It’s a constant debate with myself and other real estate agents who generate a substantial portion of their leads online.

Forcing Registrations

Over the long term, you’re likely to see a trend in the number of leads you receive, and the quality of those leads.

High number of leads.

Lower quality leads.

For the purposes of this article, a high quality lead is one that is qualified and read to purchase now. A low quality lead is one that is not ready to buy for at least a year, and is not qualified to buy nor is ready to begin the pre-qualification process.

There are a few popular ways to force registration that I’ve seen agents try out. I don’t have proof that any is better than the other, so the results may vary from market to market.

Allow user to view search results as well as a fixed number of property detail pages, then force registration after the user has exceeded their limit.

For the record, my site is currently using option number 2 with mixed results. I get quite a few visitors to my site a day, and I have a bit over a 9% visitor to registration conversion ratio. That’s not a bad number, given my target is set at 10%.

The issue I have with forcing registration is that I personally hate doing it. I hate having to register to view information that I can readily find elsewhere for free. In my mind, when a site offers information for free to me, they are building rapport and goodwill. The chances of me returning to that site are quite high; given I found the information I came looking for.

When you force registration, you are requiring that they fork over contact information so that you or someone on your team should be following up. From a real estate agent perspective, that’s not bad at all.

You can never have enough leads. – Gary Keller

Let’s put on our client hat for a moment. What if I’m not ready to buy a home for a couple of years? Do I really want a real estate agent contacting me for that long? I’d leave the site for sure; for the same reasons that I don’t frequent a car lot until I’m absolutely read to buy a car.

If you’re ready to buy right now, then an agent calling could be convenient, but not what you were expecting. We’re talking about a simple registration form that was filled out, not a request to view a home or a request for a pre-approval. In those cases, the user is undoubtedly expecting a return response almost immediately; definitely within the day.

No Registrations Required

Just like forcing registrations, keeping your site open will see a likely trend as well.

Low number of leads.

Higher quality leads.

This seems pretty logical; doesn’t it? If users are not forced to register when they are viewing properties, which is what 95% of them come there to do, then you’re likely to not get nearly as many leads than if you forced them to. The quality of the lead will also be higher, since a user that goes out of their way to contact you is probably going to be a high quality lead.

The problem with no registrations is that you’ve lost the opportunity to convert the lead 6 months ago. Chances are you didn’t even know that particular user was even there!

Think about this for a moment. John Doe is looking to buy a home in 6 months, and stumbled on your site. He views properties and is pretty ecstatic about finding homes in his desired area. 4 months go by, and by gosh, he’s ready to talk to an agent. At that moment, he realizes that Sue, his second-cousin, is a real estate agent.

You’ve just lost the lead. You didn’t even have a chance to talk to John. It’s for this reason alone I’ve opted to forgo the no registration strategy and force registrations when a user wants to view the details of a home. I want to have the opportunity to convert.

Many national real estate sites do not force registrations, and I think this is a trend we’ll start seeing more often. I feel consumers will eventually strive for an open, sharing community where they don’t have to check their baggage at the door. When you have some spare time, stop by Redfin, Zillow, and Trulia and be aware of the experience you have when browsing listings on those sites. Would you feel the same as if they forced you register?

It Relies Your Systems

At the end of the day, the only logical conclusion I can come to is one that is heavily reliant on the systems you’ve implemented in your business.

If you have a follow up system armed and ready to tackle any lead that walks through the door, regardless of the quality, then forcing registrations may be the way to go. If you still struggle to follow up with your leads, and notice that you lose track of those that aren’t ready within a few months, then no registrations may be your ticket.

What do you think? Do you force registrations or not? Why did you choose this strategy?

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/724-the-registration-debate-forced-or-not/feed/17Palm Pre Releases June 6 With Sprinthttp://www.techforagents.com/707-palm-pre-released-june-6-with-sprint/
http://www.techforagents.com/707-palm-pre-released-june-6-with-sprint/#commentsTue, 19 May 2009 16:23:16 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=707Probably the closest contender to the iPhone to date (one that’s actually innovating beyond some of the iPhone features), is the Palm Pre. Sprint just announced that the Pre is […]

]]>Probably the closest contender to the iPhone to date (one that’s actually innovating beyond some of the iPhone features), is the Palm Pre.

Sprint just announced that the Pre is going exclusive to them alone, and to hit the shelves nationwide on June 6th for $199 (with contract and rebates).

Honestly, the phone looks great. It’s subtle black exterior with simplistic single button resembles the iPhone, but this bad boy features a slide-out keyboard. I’ve heard complaints of many Blackberry users that this is one of the main reasons prohibiting their transition to the iPhone.

There are some pretty impressive features of the Pre; most notabily the ability to run multiple applications at once using their “cards” functionality.

Palm webOS lets you keep multiple activities open and move easily between them like flipping through a deck of cards. You can move back and forth between text messaging and e-mail, or search the web while you listen to music. You can rearrange items simply by dragging them, and when you are done with something, just throw it away by flicking it off the top of the screen.

It’s also the first time I’ve seen the smooth scrolling feature known to iPhones when browsing the web replicated in another phone, and actually done quite well. I hate browsing the web on others that have attempted this (cough-Storm-cough).

Pretty nifty, isn’t it? I’d imagine that many iPhone users are envious of some of the features, but keep in mind that Apple’s next revision of the iPhone will be bringing many features that make it comparable to the Pre.

I’m a firm believer that competition is always a great thing for the consumer. I’m excited to see Palm bring more to the table, and this can only mean better things for this niche market.

]]>I have always dreaded that new voicemail symbol on my cell phone. It usually meant having to dial my voicemail account, enter my password, and navigate a cumbersome touch-tone interface to listen to my messages. This was before I found YouMail.com.

YouMail is a shot of steroids for your voicemail. It makes listening, retrieving and accessing your voicemail very easy. Plus it adds a lot of new functionality you are sure to enjoy.

The application is very simple to setup. Navigate to YouMail’s (www.youmail.com) site and enter your cell phone number and voicemail pin in to get started. You will receive a confirmation text message. After you verify with a reply you are on your way. The web setup is very easy to use. There are even video tutorials available if you need additional help.

Some of the benefits include:

Visual Voicemail

Customized voicemail messages for each caller

Voice-to-text Transcriptions

Ability to download voicemails to .mp3

Unwanted Call Blocking

It’s free!

The ability to create customized greetings is one of my favorite features. You can record or upload greetings for each contact. It is a great way to add a personal touch for the people you stay in touch with regularly.

If the caller does not have a personalized greeting you recorded, YouMail will actually retrieve the first and last name the cell phone number belongs to. The greeting will then use the first name information to greet the caller.

I usually get one voicemail a week where someone starts by saying “How did you know how to pronounce my name?” There is also the option to use one of the many greetings available on the site.

There are of course some things that could use improvement. You have to manually add in each contact you want to setup a personal message for. Hopefully future releases will have the ability to pull your contacts in from Outlook or even a CSV file. Also, you receive ads in the text messages for new voicemail. I guess this is what they have to do to keep the service free.

If you are not happy with your cell phone’s current voicemail option, I would highly suggest YouMail. It is quick and easy to setup and it is free. Plus it is good way to give callers a more personalized experience when leaving you a message on your cell phone.

]]>You might have heard of Redfin; an online real estate brokerage with a phenomenal website that offers consumers a different commission model than traditional real estate brokerages.

Recently, a settlement between the Department of Justice and the National Association of Realtors enabled Redfin to get access to more information to display on their site.

More significantly, Redfin is adding up to 200 additional data fields thanks to last year’s settlement between the Department of Justice and the National Association of Realtors, which requires multiple listing services to make data available online and share it more broadly. Anything a real estate broker can tell a client can now be put online.

This is great news for all real estate agents. Why? Having access to more data will give you more tools to present to your clients online, while also giving consumers more information to better educate them while looking for a new home. This settlement helps build your case when confronting your MLS about the data they won’t give to you (eg. sold data).

I don’t expect this to trickle down to all markets at all, but at least it provides justification for agents whose local MLS are overly restrictive on the amount of data that they’re allowed to display on their site.

Is your local Multiple Listing Service restrictive on the data they allow you to display?

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/579-settlement-with-doj-helps-redfin-get-more-data/feed/1Apple Wants To “Repair” My iPhone 3Ghttp://www.techforagents.com/576-apple-wants-to-repair-my-iphone-3g/
http://www.techforagents.com/576-apple-wants-to-repair-my-iphone-3g/#commentsSat, 18 Apr 2009 18:11:46 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=576So I noticed that lint has been getting underneath the glass on my iphone, and I look online for some solutions. I’ve found that past owners simply walked up the […]

]]>So I noticed that lint has been getting underneath the glass on my iphone, and I look online for some solutions. I’ve found that past owners simply walked up the Apple store, and they replaced their phone for a defective display. Cool.

So I went ahead and called Apple to verify, and sure enough – we set up an appointment to have my phone replaced at the store the next day.

I go to the store, and learn that they are no longer replacing the phones. He wants to order me a new glass and “repair” my phone – repair a product that was bought defective. I don’t think so.

I call back Apple, and they’re shocked. They’ve never heard of repairing a phone, and the second Apple rep told me that they should just replace it. He proceeds to call the store and get an explanation for this.

Come to find out, there are a few select stores that are “testing” the repair ability on the phone, and they are now trying to repair iPhones that are defective before replacing them. What the ****?! And he also informed that this was the first time that he, his co-workers, and his supervisor heard of it.

So now my options are to get my phone repaired, so now I’m running around with a product I knowing pay a premium for for quality – but now have to know it’s been repaired. I can send in my phone and get it replaced, but I’m out of a business phone for 3 days which is unacceptable.

Or I can be charged a $21 fee, plus a charge on my Credit card for new phone and they’d send me a replacement – and I would get reimbursed until they get mine back. Fine – but why should I have to pay?

Had I knowingly went into the store expecting my displayed to get repaired, fine. But after doing research first, after hearing of past customers getting their phones replaced, and after hearing from TWO representatives that I’d get mine replaced, why can’t I get the same level of service everyone else has had?

I live in Houston – and the store that is “testing” this new repair thing is in Willowbrook mall.

I buy Apple products because I expect a higher level of quality and customer service. I guess every once and a while, even those you never expect to will let you down.

I’ll continue to post and spread the word.

Update: The repair was done under warranty by Apple, and the phone was given back to me in it’s normal condition. The repair went well, so while I initially was taken back by the move by Apple, I am now okay with getting my iPhone repaired.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/576-apple-wants-to-repair-my-iphone-3g/feed/5Top Producer Dumps Contactshttp://www.techforagents.com/568-top-producer-dumps-contacts/
http://www.techforagents.com/568-top-producer-dumps-contacts/#commentsWed, 01 Apr 2009 14:08:01 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=568Today, Top Producer 8i had a run in with the Conficker virus, and it seems everyone’s contacts are missing. After speaking with support, it seems as if somehow the virus […]

]]>Today, Top Producer 8i had a run in with the Conficker virus, and it seems everyone’s contacts are missing. After speaking with support, it seems as if somehow the virus installed itself on their servers, and immediately started deleting everything.

No reports if you’ll be able to restore your contacts, but let’s hope you’ve been performing daily backups (I do 2 a day) of your contacts, transactions, notes, marketing, published marketing, listings, and emails.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/568-top-producer-dumps-contacts/feed/1Conficker Worm Attack on April Fools?http://www.techforagents.com/562-conficker-worm-attack-on-april-fools/
http://www.techforagents.com/562-conficker-worm-attack-on-april-fools/#commentsFri, 27 Mar 2009 18:21:58 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=562I’ve been getting a round of emails notifying me of a new virus on PCs said to make waves comes 4/1 (April Fools). It could be some big joke, but […]

]]>I’ve been getting a round of emails notifying me of a new virus on PCs said to make waves comes 4/1 (April Fools). It could be some big joke, but what if it isn’t? I did some research in case you want to ensure you’re safe against any April Fool’s viruses.

A quick way to determine if you’re computer is affected by the virus at this time according to US Today (make sure you’re connected to the internet) is to:

That’s because Conficker blocks you from reaching any web address that includes Microsoft, Symantec, McAfee, AVG, Kaspersky, Trend Micro, F-Secure, Panda, Sophos, SecureWorks or Sunbelt in the URL.

Please make sure you are connected to the internet before trying this test.

Some extra steps for precaution:

Always make sure you have anti-virus installed on your computer. I recommend a company called NOD32.

Always make sure you are installing your updates from Microsoft. If you look on the bottom right hand side of your task bar (near the time), look for a yellow shield icon. See one? That means you are not installing your updates from the makers of Windows. It’s strongly advised that you always keep your computer updated. Always!

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/562-conficker-worm-attack-on-april-fools/feed/4SEO Plugins for WordPresshttp://www.techforagents.com/553-seo-plugins-for-wordpress/
http://www.techforagents.com/553-seo-plugins-for-wordpress/#commentsFri, 20 Mar 2009 16:27:59 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=553Mashable just came out with a great post listing the 20 best SEO plugins for WordPress. Techforagents is built on WordPress, and I find it to be one of the […]

]]>Mashable just came out with a great post listing the 20 best SEO plugins for WordPress. Techforagents is built on WordPress, and I find it to be one of the easiest to use platforms around.

If you have a blog, be sure to give some of them a try. Among the list, I personally use:

All in One SEO Pack – This is the “jack of all trades” SEO plugin for WordPress that was recommended to me numerous times. It let’s you edit Title tag structures, meta information, and a long list of other useful options.

Google XML Sitemaps – Submitting your sitemap to search engines helps them get to your content faster. This plugin will help you create that sitemap faster.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/553-seo-plugins-for-wordpress/feed/6GMail Labs – Undo Send a Godsend?http://www.techforagents.com/542-gmail-labs-undo-send-a-godsend/
http://www.techforagents.com/542-gmail-labs-undo-send-a-godsend/#commentsFri, 20 Mar 2009 14:09:11 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=542I’m going to assume that you’re like me, and there has been more than one occasion where you accidentally let an email go before proofreading. Maybe your fingers were a […]

]]>I’m going to assume that you’re like me, and there has been more than one occasion where you accidentally let an email go before proofreading.

Maybe your fingers were a little greasy from that taco you just ate for lunch, and your fingers slipped and somehow sent your email in GMail. I’ve done this, and you usually hear a “Nooooo!” down the hall when it happens.

In the labs area of GMail (under settings), there is a new feature you can enable called “Undo Send”. In a nutshell, you can recall an email from being sent as long as you left-click on the undo link after accidentally sending an email. I hear you’ll get about 5 seconds to recall your email before the opportunity is gone.

This is the description provided in the labs area:

Oops, hit “Send” too soon? Stop messages from being sent for a few seconds after hitting the send button. – By Yuzo F

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/542-gmail-labs-undo-send-a-godsend/feed/3iPhone Updates to 3.0 – Copy/Paste, MMS, and Morehttp://www.techforagents.com/531-iphone-updates-to-30-copypaste-mms-and-more/
http://www.techforagents.com/531-iphone-updates-to-30-copypaste-mms-and-more/#commentsTue, 17 Mar 2009 18:48:37 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=531Today, Apple had a conference summing up the upcoming changes to their iPhone operating system – dubbed version 3.0. In this new update, you can look forward to a laundry […]

]]>Today, Apple had a conference summing up the upcoming changes to their iPhone operating system – dubbed version 3.0. In this new update, you can look forward to a laundry list of features that were notoriously absent from the popular handset from Apple.

Among the long list of new features, the most popular in my opinion are:

MMS – You can finally send picture messages via text messaging.

Copy and Paste – I personally never thought this hindered me from using my iPhone , but when the update gets released I’ll probably wonder how I lived without it.

Push Notifications – Now you can get notifications from your applications even when that application isn’t open. Apple promised this a while back and it never came through, so hopefully this time we’ll see it become a reality.

Google Maps API – Now developers can integrate Google Maps into their applications. By far the most promising thing from this new feature is the possiblity of a developer creating an application that support turn by turn directions just like all other GPS systems out there.

Universal Search – The Palm Pre was noted to have this built in from day one, and I think Apple took notice. They’re now featuring a new feature called, “Spotlight” that will allow you to search your entire phone for whatever you’d like.

There were quite a few more features listed, but the above are the most noteworthy in my opinion. You can read the full list over at Engadget.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/531-iphone-updates-to-30-copypaste-mms-and-more/feed/2Carbonite: Piece of Mind for Paperless Agentshttp://www.techforagents.com/524-carbonite-piece-of-mind-for-paperless-agents/
http://www.techforagents.com/524-carbonite-piece-of-mind-for-paperless-agents/#commentsMon, 16 Mar 2009 15:55:46 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=524Making the jump to paperless is the first step, making sure your all your documents, contracts, and other valuable data is backed up and protected is the next. As real […]

]]>Making the jump to paperless is the first step, making sure your all your documents, contracts, and other valuable data is backed up and protected is the next.

As real estate agents move toward a paperless filing system, a reliable backup solution is mandatory. This is where Carbonite comes in. Carbonite is an online backup solution that will keep your data safe and secure.

Setup

The software is compatible with both Windows and Mac Operating Systems.

Download the setup file from their website and follow the on screen prompts. By default the program will back up the data located in your My Documents folder. You can choose other folders to backup as well. Support is available Online as well as by telephone to answer any questions you might have.

Backup Process

The software works silently in the background of your computer. When the computer is idle, Carbonite will backup pre-selected files and folders to their online server. As soon as you start to use your computer again, the program will stop backing up. This process will not slow down your computer or internet connection when you need it.

All backups are fully encrypted so you do not have to worry about confidential information being compromised.

One very nice feature is that there is no limit to the amount of data you want to backup. There is also a Web page that you use to verify what files are backed up and also restore files if needed.

Price

You can try Carbonite free for 30 days. The annual fee is $49.95 if you decide to purchase. This price decreases if you sign up for more than one year.

If you are looking for reliable backup solution that will help prevent files being lost from accidental deletion, computer theft, or hard drive failures I strongly suggest Carbonite. It is a must have application in this new paperless world. Give it a try today.

This is a guest post by Shane Pollock. Shane is part of the Greater Raleigh Realty Team, and is a resident of Cary, North Carolina. Greater Raleigh Realty specializes in Raleigh NC Real Estate and Relocation Services.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/524-carbonite-piece-of-mind-for-paperless-agents/feed/2Homeowner’s Property Tax Reduction Kithttp://www.techforagents.com/520-homeowners-property-tax-reduction-kit/
http://www.techforagents.com/520-homeowners-property-tax-reduction-kit/#commentsWed, 11 Mar 2009 16:08:42 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=520When following up with your clients, there is always a need to send compelling information in your follow up programs to ensure that they remember you and not another agent […]

]]>When following up with your clients, there is always a need to send compelling information in your follow up programs to ensure that they remember you and not another agent down the street.

One of the most popular topics among homeowners are property taxes, and how to reduce them. This PDF direct from American Homeowners Association is a great tool to send to your homeowners any time of the year!

It’s a lengthy read, but it definitely will help you solidify your position in their minds as the real estate agent with all the answers.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/520-homeowners-property-tax-reduction-kit/feed/1Zipform Online – Creating and Using Templateshttp://www.techforagents.com/510-zipform-online-creating-and-using-templates/
http://www.techforagents.com/510-zipform-online-creating-and-using-templates/#respondTue, 10 Mar 2009 20:37:04 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=510Have you ever wanted to create a template for a certain type of transaction inside of Zipform Online? With all buyers and sellers, there are certain forms you’ll use every […]

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/510-zipform-online-creating-and-using-templates/feed/0TMobile Offers $50 Unlimited Voicehttp://www.techforagents.com/503-tmobile-offers-50-unlimited-voice/
http://www.techforagents.com/503-tmobile-offers-50-unlimited-voice/#respondMon, 02 Mar 2009 20:58:57 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=503If you are a TMobile subscriber, you may be excited to hear about they’re new $50 unlimited voice plans. I know for a fact that real estate agents are on […]

]]>If you are a TMobile subscriber, you may be excited to hear about they’re new $50 unlimited voice plans. I know for a fact that real estate agents are on the phone all the time, and a plan like this is definitely useful to us.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/503-tmobile-offers-50-unlimited-voice/feed/0Your Paperless Real Estate Businesshttp://www.techforagents.com/483-your-paperless-real-estate-business/
http://www.techforagents.com/483-your-paperless-real-estate-business/#commentsFri, 27 Feb 2009 23:27:23 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=483There are a few reasons why you may want to go paperless. I’m a neat freak; gung-ho on keeping everything organized so I can find it relatively easily at a […]

]]>There are a few reasons why you may want to go paperless. I’m a neat freak; gung-ho on keeping everything organized so I can find it relatively easily at a later date. Perhaps you’d like to save a few trees in this world.

Either way, going paperless in your real estate business is very simple to do.

What You’ll Need

There are three areas you’ll need to get in order before taking the plunge. You’ll need money, the right tools, and a system for organizing your data on your computer or server.

Money

I hate making investments in my business that, when held accountable, equate to wasted dollars. This is why I always choose products that have gotten great reviews from people who’ve purchased it in the past.

Because of this, you may be paying slightly more to go paperless than you expect. In my opinion, it’s well worth the investment, and the rights tools make getting the job done much easier.

You are going to need at least $600 to purchase the tools below.

Tools

There are two main tools you’ll need to go paperless; a shredder and a scanner. Shredders drive me nuts; they’re loud, break down often, and never seem to last as long as I’d hope them to. I’ve used flatbed scanners in the past and hate how slow they operate in a normal business environment, so we’ll forgo a flatbed scanner in this article.

To store all your documents, you have a choice of using your computer’s hard drive or a flash drive. I’d personally grab a 4gb or 8gb flash drive from Newegg.com if you went the mobile storage route.

If you’re looking at buying the scanner at the time of this post, Newegg.com is also offering free shipping.

The Fujitsu ScanSnap S510 scanner lets you scan and store clear, crisp digital copies of all your color and black and white documents, quickly and easily. Scan both sides of any document from business card to legal-sized in a single pass, and you’ll get 150 dpi color images at 18 ppm! Best of all, the S510 fits into even the most crowded office, with a footprint about the size of a sheet of paper!

It’s a little more expensive than I’d like to spend on a scanner, but out of 115 reviews, this Fujitsu ScanSnap has gotten a 5 star rating from 80% Newegg.com shoppers who bought it. Not bad!

The document feeder is a definitely necessity for multi-page documents, and the one-touch PDF function will definetly come in handy for real estate agents. Anything that helps make technology more simple for an agent gets an A+ in my book.

The Shredder – Fellowes MS-450Cs – $186.99With silent motor technology, and the ability to micro-shred your paperwork at 7 sheets per pass, this monster will eat up your unwanted paperwork in a hurry.

It’ll also take care of any credit cards you may need to shred for personal use.

The innovative Fellowes MS-450Cs is ideal for use in the home or office. MicroShred feature shreds up to 7 sheets per pass into 5/64 x 5/16” micro-cut particles as fast as 60 sheets per minute. NEW Ultra-Quiet Operation with virtually silent motor for use in shared spaces or cubicles. Patented SafeSense Technology stops shredder immediately when hands are too close to the paper opening.

With a $33 instant rebate, this Fellowes shredder will cost you $186.99 with free shipping at the time of this post.

Total – $575.99

Add in a $25 flash drive (with shipping) and you’re looking at paying around $600 total.

Filing System

Keeping your files all nice and tidy can be a tedious task. You definitely don’t want to pile everything into one folder on your computer or flash drive. In my experience, the more detailed you are with organizing your files, the better.

To keep my files organized on my computer, I like to organize them by client. Here’s a typical organizational structure I use:

My Business Files

Clients

Doe, John

Johnson, Mike

Buyer – January 2, 2008

Contracts

Closing Documents

Seller – March 24, 2008

Listing Documents

Stark, Tony

and so on…

As you can see, I organize all my files according to my clients last name. In my client name’s folder, I include another folder for 1) the type of client they were at the time and 2) what the date they became my client.

This helps me organize times when someone is a repeat client of yours; otherwise you’re going to go crazy chasing down documents from the same client that was working with you at two different time frames.

It’s probably not a fool-proof method, but it certainly makes my life much easier.

Have you gone paperless? What products/tools did you choose to get the job done? Are you happy about the transition?

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/483-your-paperless-real-estate-business/feed/8GMail Adds Multi-Upload Supporthttp://www.techforagents.com/471-gmail-adds-multi-upload-support/
http://www.techforagents.com/471-gmail-adds-multi-upload-support/#commentsThu, 26 Feb 2009 22:57:02 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=471I’ve been using GMail since 05′, but one of the problems I run into is when you want to upload multiple files as attachments to an email. GMail used to […]

]]>I’ve been using GMail since 05′, but one of the problems I run into is when you want to upload multiple files as attachments to an email. GMail used to force you to upload each attachment one at a time.

Not anymore! The crew over at Mashable just stumbled on the feature that will allow you to upload multiple documents by simply CTRL-selecting each document. You even get a progress indicator that shows you each file’s upload status.

See a demonstration screenshot after the break.

I haven’t gotten it to work on Firefox, but it is working on the latest Safari browser so I’d give it a day or so to make it’s way across all browsers. You’ll also want to clear your browser cache, and try logging out and back in if you can’t get it to work correctly.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/471-gmail-adds-multi-upload-support/feed/3Internet Lead Conversion Spreadsheethttp://www.techforagents.com/464-internet-lead-conversion-spreadsheet/
http://www.techforagents.com/464-internet-lead-conversion-spreadsheet/#respondThu, 26 Feb 2009 21:13:34 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=464Calculating the benefits of attracting people to your real estate website can be a very tedious task. There are conversion ratios to consider, decisions to make on whether to force […]

]]>Calculating the benefits of attracting people to your real estate website can be a very tedious task. There are conversion ratios to consider, decisions to make on whether to force registrations or not, and that’s just the beginning.

I took the time recently to create a spreadsheet for calculating the expecting gross commission income by providing the number of unique visitors to your site per day. It’s very simple to use; all the boxes/cells that are not grey are ones that you can change to match your business models.

Download the spreadsheet after the break.

I’ll work on updating it based on your feedback. I threw it together so I plan to make it look “pretty” in the next couple of revisions.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/464-internet-lead-conversion-spreadsheet/feed/05 Things to Avoid When Writing Emailshttp://www.techforagents.com/441-5-things-to-avoid-when-writing-emails/
http://www.techforagents.com/441-5-things-to-avoid-when-writing-emails/#commentsMon, 02 Feb 2009 16:21:41 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=441Phone calls cost me money (if on a mobile phone) and usually interrupt whatever I was doing. I lose my focus and it really takes me a while to get […]

]]>Phone calls cost me money (if on a mobile phone) and usually interrupt whatever I was doing. I lose my focus and it really takes me a while to get the productivity train rolling again.

This is why I love email. Emails allow the person who received it to answer it at their convenience; not yours. You also have a running history of all the emails you sent in the past. Ever try to recall the exact words you used in a phone conversation you had last week? I surely wouldn’t be able to remember.

All Emails Are Not Created Equal

Every now and then I’ll get an email that makes me cringe. For this reason, here are my top five rules for email etiquette.

NO CAPS!

In the email world, using caps is like you are standing nose to nose with someone you wish to speak with, and screaming to them at the top of your lungs. Imagine that for a second; I’ll wait. Don’t ever use all caps. Ever.

Use bold sparingly.

Bolding is caps ugly cousin. I don’t tend to see this very often, but for the mere fact that I have seen it will force it to be mentioned as numero dos. That doesn’t mean that bold doesn’t have it’s place, however.

You’ll only want to use bold when you want the attention of your email to be focused at a specific point. When in question, just leave bolding out of the equation.

Watch your tone.

There are certain words that are hard to express in an email, simply because of the demeanor in which it’s normally delivered. Think of how you would say the word “obviously” in both a nice tone, and then a sarcastic one.

When the world reads your emails, realize that tone is highly subjective to the person reading it. Some may think it’s nice (usually you’re the only one), and then everyone might think you’re being a smart-alic. Be careful with your tone.

Avoid long emails.

Short, sweet, and to the the point. There are plenty of people in this world that love to read books, but I assure you that there are plenty that don’t. Don’t assume they want to take all day to read your email.

Answer their question, and if you are trying to convert a lead; stay into curiosity. Ask another question back to entice a fruitful conversation that builds a long lasting relationship.

Drop those snazzy email templates.

When you recieve an email with images from someone you don’t know, most likely your email software (I use Gmail) will block those images from being loaded. You explicity have to tell it to load the pictures.

If you’re working with someone that doesn’t know you (a new lead), then your email may end up without your template images; so why bother?

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/441-5-things-to-avoid-when-writing-emails/feed/4Netbooks For Real Estatehttp://www.techforagents.com/424-netbooks-for-real-estate/
http://www.techforagents.com/424-netbooks-for-real-estate/#commentsMon, 26 Jan 2009 16:06:10 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=424You will inevitably encounter a moment in your real estate career when you wish you had access to the internet and all your office documents but found you were conveniently […]

]]>You will inevitably encounter a moment in your real estate career when you wish you had access to the internet and all your office documents but found you were conveniently void of all mobile internet devices.

You may be sitting in the middle of a closing, or showing a gorgeous 3-2-2 your clients are falling head over heels for. Sure; you could have your clients squint at a 3 inch cell phone screen, or perhaps take a 30 minute trip back to your office and make them late for dinner. Is there anything out there to help with this inconvenience?

I’d like to introduce you to an affordable mini-laptop: the Netbook. Netbooks were a big hit this year at the Consumer Electonics Show, and they may very well be the next tech purchase for your real estate business.

What Is A Netbook?

A Netbook is basically a miniature laptop. They’ve become popular because they’re remarkably affordable. A decent Netbook won’t run you over $400 online, but name brands can run a bit more expensive (Sony, for example).

The screen sizes are smaller, and max out at 10″ diagonally. I’ve personally used a 10″ netbook and have been pleasantly surprised at the amount of screen real estate you get for the price.

Weight is also a common issue with laptops. The nice 17″ laptop you love to sit on your desk probably weights a good 7 – 8lbs. Sure you can lug that big boy around, but realize that a Netbook only weighs a measly 2-3 lbs! These babies are small on purpose, and bode well when tucked away into a suitcase or handbag.

As it stands, most Netbooks come with Windows XP Home edition, but I’ve been hearing reports that the next version of Windows (after Vista), named Windows 7, plays very nicely with Netbooks so you will have the option to upgrade the operating system in the future.

The investment is small, and the mobility you achieve is pretty large. I’ve created a list of the best Netbooks from my favorite online retailer, Newegg.com, below. My recommendation at this time is the white or black ASUS Eee PC EPC1000HA (10″ screen, 1GB of RAM, and 160GB hard drive).

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/424-netbooks-for-real-estate/feed/10Site Update: Larger Font Sizehttp://www.techforagents.com/420-site-update-large-font-size/
http://www.techforagents.com/420-site-update-large-font-size/#commentsWed, 21 Jan 2009 23:03:41 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=420I decided to experiment a little with the font size at the blog, picking it up from 75% of normal text size to 90%. I’ve been noticing that agents I […]

]]>I decided to experiment a little with the font size at the blog, picking it up from 75% of normal text size to 90%. I’ve been noticing that agents I showed the blog to were straining to see the text a bit, and was looking to get around to this soon.

I also changed the fonts from Trebuchet to Arial.

So what do you think? Is the new font size suit well? Should I revert back to the smaller text?

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/420-site-update-large-font-size/feed/1Apple Announces Record Earnings for First Quarterhttp://www.techforagents.com/415-apple-announces-record-earnings-for-first-quarter/
http://www.techforagents.com/415-apple-announces-record-earnings-for-first-quarter/#respondWed, 21 Jan 2009 22:56:00 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=415Apple just announced record earnings for the first quarter of 2008. This quarter, they posted a whopping $1.61 Billion in profit from $10.17 Billion in revenue. Doesn’t really mean much? […]

]]>Apple just announced record earnings for the first quarter of 2008. This quarter, they posted a whopping $1.61 Billion in profit from $10.17 Billion in revenue. Doesn’t really mean much?

Try this one on for size. Along with those earnings, Apple had a 9% growth in sold Mac computers totaling 2,524,000. I still seeing most agents use PCs in their day to day business. However, I’ve had more than one agent come to me lately asking about my opinion of Macs.

If I had an option of a new computer for my business right now, I’d probably go with an iMac, or possibly a 15″ Macbook Pro and a Apple Cinema Display. The design quality, ease of use, and great applications available for the Macs are really exciting to use, not to mention that I think they are absolutely gorgeous on a desk.

Have I turned into an Apple fanatic? Not really. I still use a PC at the office every day. I am, however, excited to hear that they are doing well, and have been pleasantly surprised when using their products in the past.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/415-apple-announces-record-earnings-for-first-quarter/feed/010 Real Estate Blogging Ideashttp://www.techforagents.com/407-10-real-estate-blogging-ideas/
http://www.techforagents.com/407-10-real-estate-blogging-ideas/#commentsTue, 20 Jan 2009 20:34:39 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=407Real estate agents have a lot on their plate. When they’re not out showing homes, helping a distressed client with their closing, or contacting their past clients to drum up […]

]]>Real estate agents have a lot on their plate. When they’re not out showing homes, helping a distressed client with their closing, or contacting their past clients to drum up some referral business, they’re busy trying to find ways to get their business exposed to the world.

Blogging is a great way to display you level of expertise with your neighborhood, city, or niche. Below, I thought it would be nice to share 10 real estate topics you could blog about today to get you in the mood to write.

Market Statistics For Your City

Market Statistics For A Neighborhood

Real Estate News About A Particular Market

The Home Buying Process

The Home Selling Process

Pricing A Home In The __________ Subdivision

5 Things to Look For During A Home Inspection

Getting Approved Versus Getting Pre-Qualified

The _____ Steps to Closing

5 Things You Can Do to Stage Your Home

This isn’t an exhaustive list, of course, but I think it’s a great start! With the market statistics alone you could easily write a blog post every few days about a different subdivision in your market.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/407-10-real-estate-blogging-ideas/feed/6Christmas Is Great For Social Networkinghttp://www.techforagents.com/394-christmas-is-great-for-social-networking/
http://www.techforagents.com/394-christmas-is-great-for-social-networking/#commentsMon, 22 Dec 2008 16:29:18 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=394Online social networking for real estate agents is one of those topics that rears it’s head every year. I think we can all pretty much agree that the internet has […]

]]>Online social networking for real estate agents is one of those topics that rears it’s head every year. I think we can all pretty much agree that the internet has become a intricate part of our daily activities. Off the top of my head, we check our email online, browse listings for our clients, and promote our businesses through websites that (hopefully) get visitors every day looking for their next home.

With the internet brings the opportunity to meet people all over the world, and this is where online social networking comes into play. Social networking can help agents get their foot in a door that otherwise might seem closed.

Send Out Some Emails

The Christmas season is a great opportunity to network with other real estate agents online. If you’re a proactive real estate agent, you’re probably already sending out emails with season’s greetings to all of your clients in your database. Take a few extra moments and formulate an email for some of your fellow real estate agents that you’ve met in the past. If you haven’t kept track of past agents you’ve met (shame on you!), then start with other agents in your office. Sure you guys are competing against each other for business, but what if another agent in your office gets a lead in an area where they don’t service but you do?

If you’ve kept business cards from agents you’ve met at state and national conventions, be sure to put those agents into your database. Keeping in touch with agents that you’ve met across the country with a monthly email is a great way to promote real estate referrals (who couldn’t use some of those?).

Online Social Networking

I’m certainly a fan of networking online with other agents at sites that have a well established community of agents, and this season is also a great opportunity to visit some of those social sites (like ActiveRain and BiggerPockets.com) to spread some holiday cheer.

In the process, be sure to mention where your real estate business is located, and mention how well you service other agent’s real estate referrals.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/394-christmas-is-great-for-social-networking/feed/2The Best Email Servicehttp://www.techforagents.com/385-the-best-email-service/
http://www.techforagents.com/385-the-best-email-service/#commentsMon, 22 Dec 2008 15:02:10 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=385When you first get into real estate, one of the first things you’ll do is get your company email address and begin to send and receive email between your family, […]

]]>When you first get into real estate, one of the first things you’ll do is get your company email address and begin to send and receive email between your family, friends, and new contacts; informing them of your start into a lucrative real estate career.

The email service you end up choosing to manage your email is one decision that seems small up front, but think about the long term consequences. If you choose an email service you end up hating, you’ll then have to endure the tedious process of transferring all your email (literally forwarding them all) to your new service.

Why not just start with the best? GMail, in my opinion, is the best email service out there hands down; and I’m not the only one of thinks that. Don Reisinger over at CNet recently wrote an article on why he thinks GMail is the best email service out there.

Here’s his five main points:

SpamInitially, you probably won’t get spam, but over time the amount of spam you can accumulate can get tremendous. Thankfully, GMail does a great job of filtering most of that spam.

Google AppsWhen someone sends you an attachment in Word, Powerpoint, or even a PDF – you no longer have to even download it! You can view it right in your browser using Google Apps.

FiltersFilters in GMail are like rules for Outlook, only 100x better. Filters are super easy to create, and can help you organize your email in a snap.

AdvertisementsI’m with Don on this one too. If you’ve used any other email service out there (Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc.), then you’ve seen the huge ads that can appear and totally ruin the experience. In GMail, the ads are minimal and are never images. Text ads are organized in areas that aren’t obtrusive to you, which is wonderful.

ConversationsWhen I first started using GMail, the conversations were pretty neat. Now, I feel I can’t live without them. Any email that has the same subject can form a conversation, which then enables you to see the history of an email at a glance. I know I’m not the only one that hates scrolling through tons of email history using the old method.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/385-the-best-email-service/feed/7Q&A – Joshua Dorkin at BiggerPockets.comhttp://www.techforagents.com/341-qa-joshua-dorkin-at-biggerpocketscom/
http://www.techforagents.com/341-qa-joshua-dorkin-at-biggerpocketscom/#commentsFri, 19 Dec 2008 15:51:25 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=341I was recently given the opportunity to talk with Joshua Dorkin, CEO of BiggerPockets.com, about his social network for real estate agents. Social networking for real estate agents is a […]

]]>I was recently given the opportunity to talk with Joshua Dorkin, CEO of BiggerPockets.com, about his social network for real estate agents.

Social networking for real estate agents is a growing trend online. There have been a multitude of communities that have tried, and failed, to establish a presence online among real estate agents. From the looks of it, BiggerPockets.com is a social network that is thriving and growing every day.

The following interview could help expose you to a great site for real estate agents to network amongst each other, while also offering a portal for real estate investing.

I’m Joshua Dorkin, the founder (creator) and CEO of BiggerPockets.com.

If you summarize BiggerPockets in a few sentences, what would you say?

BiggerPockets is a real estate social network and investing resource portal. The site takes a four prong approach to real estate, with a focus on networking, dealmaking, education and marketing.

Essentially, it is a community where real estate professionals, investors, and consumers can come together to learn, do business, meet others and promote themselves.

How did you come up with your company name?

I’ve got many friends in the entertainment business. One of them was working on an independent movie and had a line where he was telling someone that he needed bigger pockets for all the money he was making.

As soon as I heard the line, I knew that I had to register a domain called BiggerPockets.com!

How long has BiggerPockets been around?

BiggerPockets was created in Fall of 2004 as a site that I was going to use as a resource directory for real estate investing information. I figured I could add a forum to the site and maybe people would start to get involved. I guess the adage, “if you build it, they will come” (Field of Dreams) reigned true.

People started to trickle in and participate on the forum, and little by little, the site grew. We never advertised, and once I realized that the site was something that others would really find helpful, I began to implement a plan for the future. Part of that plan included establishing a full-fledged social network for real estate people.

This past January, 2008, we were able to finally launch our social network, and have been improving it ever since!

How many members do you have?

BiggerPockets just recently crossed the 25,000 member milestone (currently 25,402)

Are you seeing good member growth?

We’re definitely seeing our growth rates improve every month. We’re currently adding somewhere between 50 and 75 new members per day.

What’s the most popular part of BiggerPockets? Why do you think it’s the most popular?

To be honest, I’d have to say that there are quite a few parts of BiggerPockets that are equally popular, but I’ll highlight just a few.

Our resource directory brings thousands of new visitors to the site every day. Whether people are trying to find information about foreclosures, REOs, real estate clubs, landlording, etc., they can find it in our directory.

People love this directory because we’ve made it easy to find quality information, tools, and resources in one place. Additionally, we are hard-core about including only information that we find to be top-notch.

Our forums are second to none in the online real estate space. We police the forums very well to dissuade spammers, and the community has been policing itself for some time now. The forums have become the go-to place for people to discuss real estate and investing, get advice on potential deals, ask about a real estate company, learn techniques, get ideas, market deals, find financing, connect with other professionals, and much more.

The reason our forums are so popular, I feel, is that our members and moderators look out for one another. There aren’t many places I feel that people can go where they can learn something new every day, and they can definitely do it on our forums.

Our blog (http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/) is one of the top real estate information destinations out there. We’ve got a phenomenal team of writers with expertise in every area of real estate, who are putting out top-notch content every day.

Whether we’re writing about breaking news, or putting together a tutorial on some aspect of real estate, the blog is thoughtful and thorough.

What is BiggerPockets looking to accomplish in the long run?

BiggerPockets has a long-term vision for serving the real estate community. We’re planning on continuing to build tools and applications that make the daily lives of people in the real estate world easier.

Anything you’d like to say to the readers at TechForAgents.com?

I’d love to tell the readers at TechForAgents.com that while technology is becoming a more and more important part of our lives, we must remain grounded. I’m seeing too many cases where agents get completely caught up in technology and forget about the basics.

People have been successful in real estate for a long time without the help of the internet and technology, and I want to make sure people don’t forget that real estate is a service industry; forget that at your peril.

With that in mind, I hope that your readers bring BiggerPockets into their social media presence, as there’s no place better to connect with both other professionals and consumers at the same time.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/341-qa-joshua-dorkin-at-biggerpocketscom/feed/2Lynda.com Online Video Traininghttp://www.techforagents.com/330-lyndacom-online-video-training/
http://www.techforagents.com/330-lyndacom-online-video-training/#respondThu, 18 Dec 2008 18:37:12 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=330I’ve always been a firm believer that anything that is foreign to you will always seem complicated at first. When it comes to real estate technology, this belief couldn’t be […]

]]>I’ve always been a firm believer that anything that is foreign to you will always seem complicated at first. When it comes to real estate technology, this belief couldn’t be more true.

There is a lot of software that real estate agents may come across, or find the need to use when working with their clients. Creating great fliers, working with word processors, and sometimes even complicated spreadsheets can be a daunting task for agents. This is where Lynda.com fits into your real estate business.

Lynda.com is an online video training site that offers a vast amount of training on a wide variety of software at an affordable cost. For $25 a month with no contract committments, you can learn just about any software, programming language, and more at the convenience of your office or home.

I’ve personally used Lynda.com to learn programming languages for my own websites, but I’ve selected a list of training on products from Lynda that any agent could benefit from below:

Adobe Acrobat

Excel

Powerpoint

Illustrator

Internet Explorer

Office 2003 and 2007

OpenOffice

Picasa

Google Docs

the list goes on…

One of the best things about Lynda is that you can see a sample selection of videos for any subject prior to paying for their videos.

Nonetheless, I think you’ll benefit from purchasing at least one month’s worth of subscriptions and taking some time to really learn how to use that software you are exposed to every day in your business.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/330-lyndacom-online-video-training/feed/0Google Chrome Drops Beta Taghttp://www.techforagents.com/324-google-chrome-drops-beta-tag/
http://www.techforagents.com/324-google-chrome-drops-beta-tag/#respondTue, 16 Dec 2008 21:24:08 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=324Some of you may have given Google Chrome a shot back when it was released back in September. Have you stuck with it? I’ve been pleasantly surprised as the amount […]

I’ve been pleasantly surprised as the amount of updates the Google Chrome team has been releasing. In fact, you may be excited to hear that their are now comfortable enough with Google Chrome to drop the beta tag and announce it officially. More details after the break!

According to Google, these are some of the things you’ll notice when using Chrome:

Better stability and performance of plug-ins (particularly video). When Chrome was first released, it couldn’t play simple video files even at YouTube. It looks like this was corrected. *phew!*

Even more speed. I’ll agree with this for sure; Chrome.Is.Fast. In fact, I would even say it’s the fastest browser out there at this time.

Bookmark manager and privacy controls. Bookmarking is something I that I see real estate agents using profusely. It’s exciting to hear that they’ve improved the tools in this department as well.

The biggest problem with Chrome is that I’d be willing to bet that major MLS’s across the country will never support it. Therefore, if an agent wants to use Chrome exclusively they’re forced to abandon this decision the moment they need to log into their MLS.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/324-google-chrome-drops-beta-tag/feed/0Upgrading to WordPress 2.7http://www.techforagents.com/321-upgrading-to-wordpress-27/
http://www.techforagents.com/321-upgrading-to-wordpress-27/#respondTue, 16 Dec 2008 18:54:09 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=321I just wanted to let you guys know that I will be upgrading to WordPress 2.7 this afternoon. If you experience some bugs here and there, please ignore until tomorrow. […]

]]>I just wanted to let you guys know that I will be upgrading to WordPress 2.7 this afternoon. If you experience some bugs here and there, please ignore until tomorrow. I should have all the kinks worked out by then!

I’ll write a post about the new version this week for sure.

Update: Upgrade is complete! Wow; interface is totally changed. Time to sift through the change log.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/321-upgrading-to-wordpress-27/feed/0Editing Your Images With Picasahttp://www.techforagents.com/315-editing-your-images-with-picasa/
http://www.techforagents.com/315-editing-your-images-with-picasa/#commentsWed, 10 Dec 2008 21:54:46 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=315One of the really great tools that Google has come out with is Picasa. Real estate agents may find great value in this free application by the search giants; it’s […]

]]>One of the really great tools that Google has come out with is Picasa. Real estate agents may find great value in this free application by the search giants; it’s simple to use and makes editing photos a breeze.

Today I thought it’d be a good idea to do a short video showcasing what Picasa can do to help you. In my experience, I’ve used Picasa to brighten, crop, and compress images so that they were web friendly.

There’s nothing like getting an email from a relative with one picture attached that’s over 3MB! The simple export feature in Picasa is well worth the download, as I’ve seen many MLS boards restrict the size of the images uploaded into their listing databases.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/315-editing-your-images-with-picasa/feed/2GMail Todo Listshttp://www.techforagents.com/307-gmail-todo-lists/
http://www.techforagents.com/307-gmail-todo-lists/#commentsTue, 09 Dec 2008 18:02:42 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=307I love it when things just work; don’t you? Google has become famous for building applications that are simplistic in nature and get the job done. One of their next […]

]]>I love it when things just work; don’t you? Google has become famous for building applications that are simplistic in nature and get the job done.

One of their next projects was a Todo List for Gmail, and it looks like they’ve begun rolling it out.

It’s simple – type in the name of the item that you’d like to do and it get’s published. Left-click on the select box next to that task and the object get’s completed.

If you have a GMail account, you’ll need to click on the labs icon on the top right of your GMail window to enable this for your account. Take a look, and read up on this new tool over at the official GMail Blog.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/307-gmail-todo-lists/feed/2TheRedX Offers Thanksgiving Salehttp://www.techforagents.com/304-theredx-offers-thanksgiving-sale/
http://www.techforagents.com/304-theredx-offers-thanksgiving-sale/#respondMon, 24 Nov 2008 14:59:20 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=304A real estate business isn’t complete without a lead generation program, and TheRedX is a company that focuses solely on providing thse tools to real estate agents across the country. […]

]]>A real estate business isn’t complete without a lead generation program, and TheRedX is a company that focuses solely on providing thse tools to real estate agents across the country.

If you’ve ever been a past subscriber to TheRedX and canceled, you might be excited to know that they are offering a sale to intice some subscribers to come back. If you sign up before December 1st, 2008, they’ll give you your first two months at half the price.

They offer three packages; the FSBO, exprired, and “both” packages. If you want to generate FSBO call lists, you’re looking at $29.99 a month. Expired call lists are $39.99 a month, and finally, to get them all it’s $79.99 a month.

This Thanksgiving day sale looks to extend to all packages, so you can take advantage even if you’re only looking to get expired call lists.

I’ve demoed TheRedX in the past and was excited that their software allowed you to save properties to come back to and even offered a way to see your scripts when you open up a property detail page with the owner’s information.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/304-theredx-offers-thanksgiving-sale/feed/0GMail Themeshttp://www.techforagents.com/295-gmail-themes/
http://www.techforagents.com/295-gmail-themes/#commentsThu, 20 Nov 2008 19:14:41 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=295I know plenty of real estate agents that use GMail in their real estate business. Personally, I use Google Apps for Business for all of my team members. You might […]

]]>I know plenty of real estate agents that use GMail in their real estate business. Personally, I use Google Apps for Business for all of my team members.

You might be excited to hear that Google, over the next couple of days, is releasing themes for your GMail. When you’re enabled, you will see a new “theme” option in the settings area of your GMail account. There’s actually quite a bit of themes avaialable; one example theme is in the photo in this post.

Want to see more? Head over to the GMail Blog to see the list of all the new themes that will be ready for you to use soon.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/295-gmail-themes/feed/6Save Money on Printinghttp://www.techforagents.com/284-save-money-on-printing/
http://www.techforagents.com/284-save-money-on-printing/#commentsWed, 12 Nov 2008 21:42:42 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=284In many markets around the United States, real estate sales have been declining due to many various factors; the media outlook on the economy, rise in foreclosures, and a more […]

In many markets around the United States, real estate sales have been declining due to many various factors; the media outlook on the economy, rise in foreclosures, and a more strict mortgage approval process.

Many real estate agents are faced a dilemma. How can I decrease my monthly expenses to brace myself for a future decrease in sales? One way to do that is by saving on your printing costs by printing as a PDF.

I’ve written about CutePDF before, but in this video, I’ll show you how to find, install, and use CutePDF to begin saving money right away. The video is after the break.
If you don’t use CutePDF, what print-to-pdf software do you use? Let’s make sure it’s free!

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/284-save-money-on-printing/feed/4Website Spotlight – MeetInBetween.ushttp://www.techforagents.com/278-website-spotlight-meetinbetweenus/
http://www.techforagents.com/278-website-spotlight-meetinbetweenus/#commentsMon, 27 Oct 2008 14:01:50 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=278If you run your real estate business in a big city, then you’ll eventually come to a prospective client that agrees to meet with you, but doesn’t want to drive […]

]]>If you run your real estate business in a big city, then you’ll eventually come to a prospective client that agrees to meet with you, but doesn’t want to drive all the way to your office. This happens to me all the time in Houston; the 4th largest city in the United States isn’t exactly easy on the gas tank.

Most agents that encounter this problem have to take the time and search for a good meeting place between both of your locations. Should you meet at a Starbucks or a restaurant? Where exactly is “meet somewhere in between”?

I stumbled on this great free website online that solves this problem. Not only is it super easy to use, but it also will help you choose a suitable meeting location between you and your client. MeetInBetween.us is a contest entry for Rails Rumble (a programmer/developer contest), and I fell in love with the moment I ran across it.

Try it for your market and see if it helps you save some time. If you enjoy the site, please take the time to register and vote for them over at the Rails Rumble 2008 site. While you’re there, check out the other top applications; they’re all great ideas and fun to play around with.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/278-website-spotlight-meetinbetweenus/feed/14Top Producer 8i Updateshttp://www.techforagents.com/256-top-producer-8i-updates/
http://www.techforagents.com/256-top-producer-8i-updates/#commentsFri, 17 Oct 2008 14:43:37 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=256Today Top Producer sent out a notice that some upgrades were being made to their contact management system known as Top Producer 8i. I love it when companies regularly update […]

]]>Today Top Producer sent out a notice that some upgrades were being made to their contact management system known as Top Producer 8i. I love it when companies regularly update their products. As promised, Top Producer is doing a great job with their 8i series with regular, consistent updates.

In this round of updates, TP8i is being expanded to include five major features: Inbound Spam Filter, Multiple Email Signatures, HTML Email Stationary, New Postcard Templates, and (finally!) support for Firefox 3.

The updates are detailed after the break.

Inbound Spam Filter
Top Producer 8i offers “@topproducer.com” email users greater Spam protection. With the new Spam filter, fewer unwanted messages will reach your inbox, and you’ll be able to mark messages as Spam. Once the Spam feature is turned on, any emails placed into the Spam folder or forwarded from your POP3 to your @topproducer.com account will be automatically deleted after 15 days.

Multiple Email Signatures
Email signatures are powerful advertising and offer more flexibility for targeted mailouts: they effectively tell those you communicate with who you are and what you do. Now, with Multiple Email Signatures, you can create and select from a variety of email signatures in the closing of ALL emails you send, and you can select signatures that best suit your audience.

HTML Email Stationery
Ensure all email communications are consistent with your branding and overall look and feel with the new Email Stationery. Select from a number of different layouts and colors, as well as embedded links to generate new web traffic and point your clients and prospects back to your website. In addition, one of the new Stationery designs includes a “Newsletter” template making it even easier to keep in regular contact with all your contacts and to keep them informed of the latest news and information.

New Postcard Templates
New “Dream Home” and “Interest in Your Area” postcard designs are easy to update and easy to print at home, in the office, or with your marketing company.

Support for Firefox 3
Use Firefox to browse the Internet? Top Producer 8i now fully supports Firefox (version 3) in addition to Internet Explorer 8.

In my opinion, these are some great updates. I’m really exicted that their are supporting Firefox 3 (how about Chrome anyone?). The inbound spam filter seems a little wasteful; I don’t know many agents that really use TP8i’s email feature. I usually find them still using Gmail or Outlook, which is perfectly fine in my opinion.

Having multiple signatures for our email marketing is fantastic! I know that for agents still working as a team of one, it would be nice to specically tailor your marketing to show various “specialist” titles depending on the type of marketing your sending. You could use titles such as “Short Sale Specialist” or “New Home Specialists” even.

Not a week goes by that email stationary isn’t brought up with TP8i. Having this feature expanded upon is a fantastic idea, and agent who really want to save money by sending all their newsletters via email should be cheering in unision.

I’m still an advocate of deferring all your postcards to a company specialized in them (such as QuantumMail). None the less, it looks like TP8i is looking to persuade you to use their postcards by adding additional templates to entice you. I don’t really have much experience with sending postcards through TP8i, so I’m pretty neutral on this one.

Support for Firefox 3? Yes, please! I’m glad they are embracing the fact that their users use more than just one browser (remember the 7i Internet Explorer days?). Firefox 3 is amazing and it being supported by TP8i really puts the icing on the cake.

What CMS do you use? If you use TP8i, what do you think about the new updates?

]]>Browsing listings on your mobile devices is pretty neat. Find the site that’s optimized for a mobile device (such as a cell phone), and your experience is optimized so that it’s easy to use given the implications (small screen, no mouse, etc.).

It good to hear that Apartments.com is taking steps to improve their site by optimizing Apartments.com to be mobile-friendly.

“In the mobile search environment, access to information is key,” said Chris Brown, vice president of product management, Apartments.com. “After taking into consideration multiple operating systems, mobile devices and carriers, Apartments.com has created a user-friendly experience for renters on the mobile web, delivering apartment listings, photos and detailed information through a rich data format conveniently accessible from any web-enabled mobile phone and carrier.”

The online market for renters is growing without a doubt, and this particular quote shows just how much.

Today almost 40 million people browse the Mobile Web, which is projected to grow 19 percent annually and reach more than 90 million by 2012.

19 percent growth?! Come to think of it, with the releases of next generation phones such as the TMobile G1, Blackberry Storm, and iPhone, these numbers don’t seem unrealistic.

1.5 Million people have already pre-ordered the G1 without even touching it. I’d agree – the web is totally going mobile.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/251-apartmentscom-adds-mobile-support/feed/3Blackberry Stormhttp://www.techforagents.com/238-blackberry-storm/
http://www.techforagents.com/238-blackberry-storm/#commentsWed, 08 Oct 2008 15:09:24 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=238Verizon is jumping on the touch screen bandwagon with what looks to be the biggest update to the Blackberry in quite some time. Verizon’s new Blackberry Storm by Vodaphone features […]

]]>Verizon is jumping on the touch screen bandwagon with what looks to be the biggest update to the Blackberry in quite some time.

Verizon’s new Blackberry Storm by Vodaphone features many of the touch screen features that Apples iPhone, Sprint’s Instinct, and TMobile’s G1 look to have, but some could say that the storm has a leg up on the competition even though they’re last to enter to race.

The Storm will feature a new type of tactile feedback with the on-screen keyboard. Unlike the iPhone, the Blackberry Storm will allow you to physically depress the screen in a clicking manner. It’s really hard to explain, but the team over at Engadget has a hands-on article that describes this feature in detail.

Also featured on the Blackberry Storm is 480×360 screen, built-in GPS, an accelerometer (for screen orientation – landscape or portrait mode), a 3.2 megapixel camera, video recording, and a headset jack. There are other common features I could list but these are the ones that are usually the most important.

You may find that the Storm also has a good level of pre-existing corporate users. With a background in being a phone operating system that caters to this audience, you may see better support for email with exchange integration. Many people are ecstatic to see that the Storm also has the ability to cut and paste text.

The phone is set to hit the shelves sometime in November, but the price of the phone has not been released yet.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/238-blackberry-storm/feed/8Search Engine Marketinghttp://www.techforagents.com/226-search-engine-marketing/
http://www.techforagents.com/226-search-engine-marketing/#commentsTue, 07 Oct 2008 17:09:22 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=226As a real estate agent, search engine marketing should be on the forefront of your mind. With each year that passes, more and more consumers are using the internet to […]

]]>As a real estate agent, search engine marketing should be on the forefront of your mind. With each year that passes, more and more consumers are using the internet to begin their search for a home. Most of these consumers are well informed buyers; looking to initially begin by viewing homes for sale.

If you’re looking to put yourself in front of these web surfers, you will eventually begin to consider search engine marketing within your lead generation strategy.

In this series of posts, I will share my knowledge of search engine marketing with you over the course of a few weeks; each post will get more and more detailed and precise.

Search Engines To Consider

In January of 2008, comScore tracked that Google has received 58.5% of all search engine traffic. That number increased to 59.2% in the following month. This tells me that a majority of my search engine marketing efforts should go to Google.

Coming up second is Yahoo at 22.2% market share. What a big decrease! Google has literally become a house-hold name; “Google it..” you’ll here ever so often. I’ve personally found many agents still using a majority of their lead generation dollars (dedicated to online marketing) to search engines besides Google.

I’m not saying investing in Yahoo or MSN is a bad idea. Rather, it’s just not the most efficient use of your marketing dollars. Investing in Google’s marketing options is by far more cost effective.

Types of Search Engine Marketing

Generally there are two types of marketing you’ll consider. In no significant order, you have pay-per-click (PPC) and organic search engine marketing.

Pay Per Click (PPC) Search Engine Marketing

Pay-per-click is pretty much exactly what the name implies. When investing in this type of program you will pay a pre-determined fee each time someone clicks on your advertisement.

Google PPC allows you to create an advertisement that is seen on the right side of search results. Many other search engines follow the same system.

How do search engines know when to show your advertisement? This is where keywords come into play. When creating your “campaign” for PPC, you’ll choose which keywords you’d like to target and you’ll also choose a bid price. This bid price is the amount of money you’re willing to pay when someone clicks on your advertisement.

The more competition your keywords has, the higher bid price it may have. You’re always welcome to bid lower that the amount the top person is willing to pay, however your advertisement is likely to not be seen as it appears at the very end of a long line of people advertising for your same keyword.

If you want to appear first, you’ll have to pay for it. When I was bidding for real estate keywords in my market, I’d ended up paying around $0.50 per click. This can really add up after a while – especially if you’re in a big real estate markets. This is where Organic search engine marketing begins to get attractive.

Organic Search Engine Marketing

When you search for anything on a search engine, you’ll be presented with the usual “top 10” sites that seem to pertain to what you’re looking for. These sites do not pay to advertise here; they are organically discovered and ranked by the search engines throughout the day. Yes; this means rankings can fluctuate on a daily basis.

Free you say? What an incredible idea! I’ll rank top 10 for any term I’d like and essentially advertise for free! Not so fast.

Organic search engine rankings are far more difficult to rank for. This is especially true when it comes to marketing a real estate site. Real estate sites are abundant on the internet; you’ll have plenty of competition in this area.

In search engine marketing and your business, I begin to take baby-steps into this area by discussing some of the key ingredients to creating a great site for search engines. Optimizing your website for organic search engine rankings is often referred to as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). We’ll get into SEO in a later post in this series.

Wrapping It Up

In this weeks post you’ve learned the type of search engine marketing you can pursue and eventually incorporate into your lead generation strategies. Next week I’ll talk in more detail about optimizing your site for search engines, and great ways to begin building your search engine rankings.

Have you begun to investigate search engine marketing? What kind of questions did you have?

Please feel free to share your thoughts by adding a comment below. Remember – in the coming weeks we’ll get more detailed. This post was aimed to get the ball rolling.

]]>In today’s spotlight, I’d like to show you a great website that helps expose sex offenders in your local community. Familywatchdog.us is a useful tool that really brings nearby sex offenders to your attention (and your client’s attention as well).

Using the site is really simple. Simply plug in the address you’d like to search near; then you’re presented with a map of all sex offenders in your neighborhood on a nifty map. This map is hosted by Google maps, but I’m a little dissappointed that you can’t “click and drag” to move the map around like you normally do.

None the less, the information it presents to you and your clients is invaluable. What really surprised me is that you can click on a marker for a sex offender and a new window will open. In this new page you’re shown the details of the sex offender (even a picture!), plus information detailing the crime they committed.

You can rest assured that your clients NEED to see this information. Sure; it may deter a sale but your clients will be appreciative for looking out for their best interests.

I’m honestly surprised at how many registered sex offenders are in my subdivision; knowing their whereabouts surely helps me keep my family safe.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/219-national-sex-offender-registry/feed/2Android and T-Mobile – Announcement Todayhttp://www.techforagents.com/192-android-and-t-mobile-announcement-today/
http://www.techforagents.com/192-android-and-t-mobile-announcement-today/#commentsTue, 23 Sep 2008 14:10:56 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=192Note: Live update currently over at Engadget from this annoucement event. I also just found TMobile’s live stream. Have you ever heard of android? No; I’m not talking about Hal […]

Have you ever heard of android? No; I’m not talking about Hal from Space Odyssey. Android is actually a platform for mobile devices (phones). It’s “what you see” when you turn on your phone; the nuts and bolts (operating system).

Want to hear the best news? Android is a Google product. If you’ve been a reader of my blog, you might have picked up that I’m a Google advocate. I use their GMail, Analytics software, Chrome and even their reader on a daily basis.

You would bet that I’d be ecstatic to hear that Google was making an operating system for a mobile phone, and even better, letting it be open source of any carrier to adopt for a new handset.

Google Android's "Mascot"

TMobile is announcing their handset today, and from what I hear it’s poised to be a direct competitor with the iPhone from Apple.

Engadget is currently there at the event and I’ll be following it throughout the day. Feel free to check here or directly at Engadget to get the latest information about this release from Google and TMobile.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/192-android-and-t-mobile-announcement-today/feed/10Animoto for Real Estatehttp://www.techforagents.com/186-animoto-for-real-estate/
http://www.techforagents.com/186-animoto-for-real-estate/#commentsMon, 22 Sep 2008 17:54:03 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=186Animoto – a golden nugget for real estate agents. I’ve been playing with Animoto for a while now, and I’m convinced that this is a great tool for real estate agents. […]

Animoto – a golden nugget for real estate agents. I’ve been playing with Animoto for a while now, and I’m convinced that this is a great tool for real estate agents.

Not only can you use it to showcase your homes using snazzy video, but you can also use it to spruce up your home movies too.

Animoto is simple. The hardest task associated with it is finding the photos you’d like include inside the movie you’re creating. In short, you’ll upload photos, choose from a selection (rather small but great quality in my opinion) of music to play in the background, and finish your video (and send it off to get rendered).

For free, you can make an unlimited amount of short videos and for $99 for three months (or $249 for a year), you can create unlimited premium DVD quality videos. My office subscribed to the three month subscription and created the following video for our grand opening. It’s currently being displayed on a 42″ plasma in the lobby with excellent visual quality.

Other videos have been created to showcase real estate. There is even a video for Prudential Gary Greene (real estate broker) made by Animoto.

Animoto is defintely worth a look, and the links you’ll find on this post are affiliate links that give you $5 discount on an all-access-pass while also giving me a 3 month pass to my subscription. I’ve but both links below so you can follow either one.

On Labor Day, Google released some tidbits of information about a browser they had been working on internally. It’s name is Google Chrome, and it’s built from the geniuses we all have come to love at Google. It’s release was given out via a comic (not kidding; but take a look!), whose screenshot you see at the left. Click on the screenshot to look at the comic in it’s entirety.

Google will be offering up a beta of it’s new browser today, and that has yet to be released. This post will be updated when I get more information.

What does this mean to real estate agents? You may have already experienced this dilemma with having multiple browsers (IE, Firefox, and Safari are probably the most popular). Many web pages have to be optimized to view well in any particular browser; what looks great in Internet Explorer may not look so great in Firefox and vice versa.

With a new browser in the playing field, we may now be inclined to optimize for yet another browser. No one has really tested Google Chrome just yet, but I will definitely be testing all my sites in the new browser the moment the beta is released.

Many have concerns with the amount of tracking Google has with their search engine alone, and now they’ll (possibly) be able to track your every move on the internet even when you’re off of Google.com. It’s the information age, and with this new browser I’m sure Google is poised to get a flood of information regarding your searching habits.

Would there be negative implications on this? Possibly. The possibility is there that your searching habits will be tracked and sent back to Google. Fortunately, their browser claims to have a privacy mode that will not track any of your online surfing either to Google or locally to your computer.

What About The Good?

Google Chrome Comic

I love Google. Anyone that knows me will tell you that I’m a Google fanatic. Everything they touch has that simplistic feel, and just “works”. I’m happy that their introducing Google Chrome into the world, and excited that it’s all open source information.

Hopefully Google Chrome will help drive innovation in internet browsers. When browsers were first created they were mostly built to interpret text, while now-a-days you’ll notice that there are some awesome and interactive websites out there. I’ve personally always enjoyed the homepage for 2Advanced Studios.

Perhaps the searching habits they will undoubtedly gather will help them serve you better advertisements, or possibly help them get you to where you need to go faster. By keeping track of your searching habits, perhaps they’ll also be keen on which sites are malicious, thus allowing them to protect more users against viruses and spyware.

It’ll be interesting to see how this all turns out, but I will definitely update this post as soon as I learn more. I’m thinking the following link will get you to where you need to go once the beta goes live, but right now it’s just a redirect.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/162-google-chrome/feed/27New Google Reader for iPhonehttp://www.techforagents.com/158-new-google-reader-for-iphone/
http://www.techforagents.com/158-new-google-reader-for-iphone/#commentsMon, 04 Aug 2008 15:04:49 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=158If you like to use Google Reader to get the latest real estate news, plus own an iPhone from Apple, you may be excited to hear that Google has released […]

If you like to use Google Reader to get the latest real estate news, plus own an iPhone from Apple, you may be excited to hear that Google has released a new version of their Google Reader made just for you.

Having a reader like Google Reader is a great way to get the latest information from your favorite sites all in one place. If you’re like me, you’ll open plenty of sites each morning and many times througout the day to read up on the latest and greatest.

Google Reader will pull the latest information from each of these sites (as long as they have RSS), and display them for you in an easy to manage format. It’s great to hear that you’ll be able to do the same, along with the intuitiveness of Google, right on your iPhone.

This new version is designed to offer many of the same features as the desktop, while making it quick and easy to act on items. If you’ve used list view, then it should be familiar to you. Scan the titles for an item that interests you, tap and it expands in place. Starring, sharing, and keeping unread are done in place, so you never have to leave the list view or refresh the page. We think it’s a very fast way to power through your reading list.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/158-new-google-reader-for-iphone/feed/24Dropbox Beta Invite Delayhttp://www.techforagents.com/145-dropbox-beta-invite-delay/
http://www.techforagents.com/145-dropbox-beta-invite-delay/#commentsTue, 15 Jul 2008 19:13:31 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=145I just wanted to express my apologies for the delay in getting the Dropbox beta invitation questions out in a timely manner. I had some emergency issues come up this […]

]]>I just wanted to express my apologies for the delay in getting the Dropbox beta invitation questions out in a timely manner. I had some emergency issues come up this weekend that prohibited me from accessing the blog, but I will be updating the contest today.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/145-dropbox-beta-invite-delay/feed/3What is OpenOffice?http://www.techforagents.com/143-what-is-openoffice/
http://www.techforagents.com/143-what-is-openoffice/#commentsMon, 07 Jul 2008 20:26:54 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=143OpenOffice (also referred to as Open Office) is an open source (free) set of applications aimed to function just like Microsoft Office without the hefty price tag. As of today, […]

]]>OpenOffice (also referred to as Open Office) is an open source (free) set of applications aimed to function just like Microsoft Office without the hefty price tag.

As of today, the Microsoft Office suite of tools costs $499.95 direct from Microsoft.com. Do you use Office enough to justify that kind of expense?

Agents and Expenses

As a real estate agent, saving money on start up expenses is usually a priority. After the initial education expenses, association membership dues, and brokerage initial fees, most agent’s pockets are usually filled with lint rather than dollar bills.

It’s in this light that OpenOffice looks very desirable. Could you accomplish the same thing that you could with Microsoft Office?

Standards

Many could argue that Microsoft Office has become an industry standard. It’s true; most small businesses with the need for a word processor and presentation software will resort to purchasing Microsoft Office licenses and have them installed on all their workstations.

However, in the real estate office most agents are using software like Zipform Online for the contracts; resorting to spreadsheets for things like net sheets, and possibly Outlook for their email (though I’m a personal fan of GMail).

Even databases are starting to be held in online software such as Top Producer 8i or Act! for Real Estate. Where does the need for a full Microsoft Office suite come into play?

In an article by Lou Dolinar, he talks about what’s holding OpenOffice back and what Microsoft is doing to combat the open standard initiative (just a fancy way of expressing the need for things to be more competitive and easier on the pocket books for everyone). I find it interesting to see that Microsoft’s answer to a unified open standard is to create their own…open standard.

The open source community is looking to create one standard that anyone is free to incorporate into their productivity tools. In this same article, Lou talks about the OpenDocument:

The anti-Microsoft crowd has an alternate data format, OpenDocument, that anyone can freely incorporate into any program, just as everyone uses the same old free, non-proprietary HTML to build Web sites. Not only that, but they’ve managed to persuade a fair number of governments to legislate standards requiring word processors, spreadsheets and such to include open document standards as well as proprietary ones. – Source

The Decision

I’d go as far as to say that most real estate agents can accomplish most of their main tasks (word processing and spreadsheets) that they do with Microsoft Office in their real estate business with free software like OpenOffice.

I believe you should be using software like Top Producer 8i for your database, and why not use GMail as your email software? You should also be using software like Zipform Online to manage your contracts.

If you could save yourself $499.95 dollars in start up costs to get you up and running; would you? $499.95 is enough to fund your monthly flyers or possibly a just listed campaign in a hot neighborhood for a new listing you just took.

Hold your money accountable! OpenOffice is free, so I definitely think it deserves a look.

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/143-what-is-openoffice/feed/37Dropbox Beta Contest Updatehttp://www.techforagents.com/142-dropbox-beta-contest-update/
http://www.techforagents.com/142-dropbox-beta-contest-update/#respondMon, 30 Jun 2008 18:28:28 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=142Just a quick note that the contest for a free Dropbox beta invitation has been updated with a new question. If you’re interested in testing out Dropbox, please feel free […]

]]>Just a quick note that the contest for a free Dropbox beta invitation has been updated with a new question. If you’re interested in testing out Dropbox, please feel free to participate in answering a real estate question to get the next invitation.

Our first winner, Bob Zabor, successfully answered the very first contest question to get his Dropbox beta invitation.

A couple of days later, Jay answered our second question about the NAR Code of Ethics and is enjoying his Dropbox account at this very moment.

Graham scored his beta invite by answering a question about the date that the NAR was officially the, well, NAR!

Our next winner, D Hamiltion, successfully answered the question about the second president of NAR. Alexander Sacket Taylor was the National Association of Realtors second president.

Andersson successfully answered the year when Realtor.com was launched, which was in 1997.

Xjs answered the question about the president of the National Association of Realtors, even though he’s already a dropbox user. How nice of him/her!

The next question will be posted on the 25th! Be sure to get your chance to win by answering the next question. In the mean time, what do you think about OpenOffice?

]]>http://www.techforagents.com/142-dropbox-beta-contest-update/feed/0Free Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007http://www.techforagents.com/140-free-microsoft-office-ultimate-2007/
http://www.techforagents.com/140-free-microsoft-office-ultimate-2007/#commentsFri, 27 Jun 2008 20:46:40 +0000http://www.techforagents.com/?p=140One of the tools I see agents using the most are the productivity tools known as Microsoft Office. In real estate, you’re probably using Excel, Word, and Powerpoint almost every […]

The winner will be chosen at random among the mass of commenters on this post. Head over to their blog and comment on what your favorite Microsoft (or Apple) product is for your chance to win; the contest ends on Sunday so don’t be too late.

I personally love the XBox 360 and good ol’ Microsoft XP Professional. What about you?